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THE   AMERICAN   STAGE 
OF   TO-DAY 


THE 

AMERICAN    STAGE 


OF 


TO-DAY 


BY 


WALTER    PRICHARD    EATON 


BOSTON 
SMALL,  MAYNARD  AND  COMPANY 

1908 


Copyright,    1908 

By  Small,   Maynard  and  Company 

(Incorporated) 


Entered  at  Stationers'   Hall 


TUP.    UNIVERSITY    PRESS,    CAMBRIDGE,    U.S.A. 


Ni 


2 

^  To  THE  Memory  of  my  Father 

WARREN    E.    EATON 

CO  WHO    FIRST   TAUGHT    ME    TO    BE    HUMBLE 

CO 

2  BEFORE   THE   GREAT   PROBLEM 


OF   OUR  SPEECH 


MOST  of  the  papers  in  this  volume 
are  reprinted,  though  with  numerous 
changes  and  additions,  from  the  "  New  York 
Sun."  I  wish  to  acknowledge  my  debt  to  the 
editors  of  that  paper  for  their  permission  to 
reprint.  The  first  and  last  long  papers,  and 
some  other  portions  of  the  book,  are  new.  If, 
in  a  work  on  the  current  stage  in  America,  I 
have  said  nothing  about  the  so-called  Theatri- 
cal Syndicate,  it  is  not  because  I  am  indifferent 
to  its  considerable  though  sometimes  exag- 
gerated evils.  It  is  a  subject  that  does  not 
belong  to  the  critic  of  aesthetics.  It  is  but  a 
part  of  a  vaster  economic  condition.  The  com- 
petitor in  theatrical  management  will  after  all 
fare  quite  as  well  as  the  competitor  in  oil  —  if 
not  better. 

W.  P.  E. 

80  Washington  Square,  New  York 
July,  1908 


CONTENTS 

Page 

By  Way  of  Apology i 

Our  Infant  Industry 6 

"  The  Witching  Hour  " 27 

"  Paid  in  Full  " 45 

Parnassus  vs.  the  Public 58 

Rhyme  and  Unreason 72 

Sophocles  in  the  Back  Yard 83 

Mr.  JoiTOs's  Revival 96 

Bunyan  Persecuted  Again no 

"The  Servant  est  the  House" 120 

Harps  in  the  Air 132 

Nazimova  as  the  Lady  Lisa 150 

Of  Justifiable  Homicide 161 

Our  Leading  Actor 174 

Falling  in  Love  with  One's  Wife 186 

Curing  a  Pessimist 191 

Kisses  and  David  Belasco 203 

The  Castles  vs.  Mr.  Pollock 215 

The  Rough  Dl^mond  as  Hero 225 


X  CONTENTS 

Page 

On  Taking  Cohan  Seriously 234 

"  The  Honor  of  the  Family  " 240 

Crane  as  a  Six  Cylinder  Kid 245 

"  Toddles  "  as  a  Text 249 

Where  is  our  Drama  of  '76? 259 

Audiences — A  Spring  Grouch 270 

Crowds  and  Mr.  Hamilton 282 

Observation  in  the  Drama 291 

The  Graphomanl\  Mimetica 303 

The  Confessions  of  a  Critic 312 


THE  AMERICAN   STAGE 
OF   TO-DAY 


THE  AMERICAN  STAGE 
OF  TO-DAY 

BY  WAY  OF  APOLOGY 

ONCE  upon  a  time  my  Boston-bred 
mother  startled  me  by  announcing  that 
the  New  York  Tribune  is  the  finest 
newspaper  pubHshed.  "  Why?  "  I  asked.  "  Be- 
cause," said  she,  "  it  is  so  soft  under  the 
carpets."  I  was  then  a  member  of  the  Trib- 
une's staff,  supplying  my  modest  daily  share 
of  the  great  thoughts  which  found  an  igno- 
minious and  dusty  end  beneath  my  mother's 
mattings.  But  I  could  not  honestly  be  offended. 
The  speedy  oblivion  which  overtakes  our  mul- 
titudinous newspapers  is  as  desirable  as  it  is 
inevitable.  If  we  were  pursued  by  the  conse- 
quences of  our  every  slightest  act,  if  our  mem- 
ories were  crammed  with  recollection  of  every 
minute  occurrence  of  our  lives,  existence  would 
soon  become  an  impossible  burden.  Man's 
greatest  accomplishment  is  the  ability  to  for- 
get, and  the  daily  destruction  of  yesterday's 
newspapers  is  an  indispensable  aid.  Most 
that  the  newspapers  chronicle  is  best  forgot- 


2     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

ten.  And  the  newspapers  chronicle  many 
things   about  the  stage. 

The  perspicacious  reader  is  now  prepared  to 
inquire  why,  holding  these  estimable  senti- 
ments, the  author  is  putting  forward  a  book 
made  up  in  large  measure  of  theatrical  re- 
views rescued  from  newspaper  oblivion  for  the 
immortality  of  covers.  (A  pleasant  little  fic- 
tion, this  about  the  immortality  of  covers,  that 
authors  are  permitted  to  indulge  in  while  writ- 
ing their  books !)  And  the  perspicacious  reader 
shall  be  answered. 

His  question  has  the  more  point  as  several 
of  the  reviews  which  follow  are  notices  of  plays 
that  failed.  A  play  that  has  failed  is  in  ninety- 
nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  about  the  deadest 
thing  imaginable,  much  deader  than  a  doornail 
or  Mr.  Scrooge's  partner.  It  is  so  dead  that  to 
reprint  the  funeral  oration  seems  almost  an  im- 
pertinence, if  not  downright  brutality.  What 
good  can  it  possibly  do?  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  why  reprint  the  review  of  a  play  that  has 
succeeded.'*  A  good  play  needs  no  critic.  It 
goes  on  delivering  its  own  message,  and  the 
wise  man  will  prefer  to  see  it,  not  read  about 
it.  The  reason  why  the  author  reprints  such 
of  the  following  papers  as  are  reprints  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  success  or  failure  of  the 
plays  reviewed.  It  is  because  he  came  to  the 
Broadway  Theater  filled  with  an  ardent  desire 


BY  WAY   OF  APOLOGY  8 

to  find  there  truth  and  passion  —  not  the  pas- 
sion of  a  Zaza  smashing  the  bric-a-brac  to  ex- 
press thwarted  amorous  desire,  but  the  passion 
of  Hfe  and  living,  the  glow  of  intellectual  ex- 
CK-  -^ent,  the  thousand  zests  of  daily  existence; 
and  he  xound  there,  instead  of  truth  and  pas- 
sion, too  often  a  stale  conventionality  that  none 
but  the  most  childish  can  possibly  believe  in, 
can  possibly  be  aroused  by,  into  thought  or  emo- 
tion. And  in  varying,  sometimes  in  contrary, 
moods  he  wrote  about  what  he  saw,  —  always, 
however,  with  the  single  underlying  purpose 
of  considering  the  stage  as  a  possible  reality 
in  American  life,  not  a  toyshop  nor  an  Eliza- 
bethan relic. 

And  because  the  stage  in  America,  especially 
in  that  dominant  and  domineering  strip  of 
America  known  as  Broadway,  is  not  yet  so 
widely  regarded  as  a  reality  that  any  season 
can  boast  of  more  than  two  or  three  native 
dramas  out  of  fifty  which  take  rank  above  the 
mere  conventional  rehashes  of  threadbare  the- 
atrical tricks,  it  seems  worth  while  to  give  as 
wide  publicity  as  possible  to  any  words  of  pro- 
test, however  feeble.  We  are  as  a  people  tre- 
mendously given  to  theater  going.  Yet  as  a 
people  we  read  few  books  about  the  stage, 
much  as  we  read  other  books;  we  have  but  a 
bowing  acquaintance  with  printed  plays.  We 
want  what  we  want  when  we  want  it,  but  to  tell 


4     THE   AISIERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

why  we  want  it  would  be  too  often  beyond  us. 
Herein  follow  a  few  attempts  to  discover  why, 
in  the  space  of  a  theatrical  season,  we  wanted 
certain  things  and  why  we  did  not  want  others 
—  which  is  no  less  significant.  The  number  of 
such  attempts  is  not  so  great  that  the  field  is 
overcrowded;  and,  in  this  day  of  the  printed 
page,  there  is  something,  perhaps,  for  which 
to  be  grateful. 

I  make  no  pretense  to  a  hard  and  fast  theory 
of  the  theater.  Personally,  I  doubt  if  any  hard 
and  fast  theory  of  the  theater  is  possible.  It 
is  wisest  to  be  ''  tough  minded,"  as  the  Prag- 
matists  would  say.  No  sooner  would  you  have 
your  theory  nicely  joined  and  dovetailed  than 
along  would  come  some  Charles  Rann  Ken- 
nedy with  a  blunderbuss  of  a  new  play  and 
blow  it  higher  than  the  Singer  tower.  Thank 
Heaven  for  that !  The  theater  lags  behind  life 
and  even  the  other  arts  always,  dragged  back 
by  a  dead  weight  of  convention.  The  bold 
actor,  the  bold  dramatist,  and,  oh!  above  all, 
that  perhaps  not  impossible  He,  the  bold  man- 
ager, are  needed.  The  innovator  is  the  real 
hero ;  the  idol  smasher  is  on  God's  side.  Born 
a  Puritan,  I  have  an  ingrained  reverence  for 
idols  —  intellectual  idols ;  I  am  a  pretty  feeble 
smasher.  But  I  am  ashamed  of  my  weakness, 
and  I  firmly  trust  that  I  shall  never  be  charged 
with  consistency,  and  that  if  I  ever  do  achieve 


BY   WAY   OF   APOLOGY  5 

a  theory  of  the  theater  I  shall  not  keep  it  with- 
out change  for  more  than  two  weeks.  Life 
changes,  and  the  theater  must  change  with  it. 
When  it  does  not,  there  is  a  divorce  between 
the  drama  and  life,  which  is  very  bad  for  the 
former,  though  life  manages  to  worry  along 
pretty  comfortably,  being  something  of  a  Mor- 
mon. I  could  wish  only  for  this  little  book 
that  it  might  aid  in  maintaining  domestic  har- 
mony. In  that  purpose  alone  I  insist  on  being 
consistent. 

At  any  rate,  I  have  foiled  my  mother.     She 
cannot  put  a  book  under  the  carpet. 


OUR   INFANT  INDUSTRY 

I  ONCE  asked  James  Huneker  what  the 
new  book  he  was  then  writing  was  about. 
"  About  the  drama,"  he  rephed.  "  Amer- 
ican? "  I  inquired.  "  I  said  about  the  drama," 
Mr.  Huneker  retorted,  with  a  Monahsacal 
smile.  Yet  he  has  always  been  among  the 
first  to  encourage  American  effort  towards 
self-expression  in  all  the  arts,  writing  with 
equal  facility  and  always  breast  forward  about 
drama,  music,  and  painting;  he  has  a  right 
to  his  somewhat  bitter  jest.  It  is  only  those  of 
us  who  have  played  the  Jeremiah;  who  have 
raised  our  voices  in  loud  lamentation  over  the 
lost  art  of  acting  as  exemplified  by  Booth  and 
Barrett,  Warren  and  Gilbert;  who  have  sighed 
for  the  grandeur  that  was  the  Boston  Museum 
stock  company  and  the  glory  that  was  Augus- 
tin  Daly;  who  scorn  Clyde  Fitch  because  he 
is  n't  Pinero  and  George  Ade  because  he  is  n't 
Ibsen  —  it  is  those  of  us  who  have  not  the  right 
to  elevate  our  noses  at  that  struggling  little 
provincial,  the  American  drama.  Philip  Hale 
has  said  that  Emma  Eames  sings  "  Who  is 
Sylvia  ?  "  as  if  Sylvia  were  not  on  her  calling 
list.    That  is  the  attitude  of  some  of  us  toward 


OUR   INFANT   INDUSTRY  7 

American  plays,  the  attitude,  too,  in  high  places. 
It  is  not  the  attitude  to  foster  a  native  art. 

And  it  is  not  justified  by  the  facts. 

In  years  not  remote  there  was,  to  be  sure, 
no  such  thing  as  American  drama.  In  the 
theater  the  good  men  do  lives  after  them;  the 
evil  is  fortunately  oft  interred  with  their  bones. 
The  winnowing  winds  of  time  separate  the 
chaff,  and  if  there  is  any  wheat  it  lies  finally 
plain  to  the  sight.  But  the  floor  of  our  theater 
in  past  generations  lay  bare.  What  did  our 
great  actors  of  the  past  play,  in  what  roles  did 
they  make  their  mighty  reputations,  which  the 
graybeards  of  to-day  use  like  clubs  to  whack 
the  head  of  each  aspiring  actor  of  the  present 
who  tries  to  push  himself  up?  Shakespeare, 
Sheridan,  Goldsmith,  Robertson,  Morton  (he  of 
*' Box  and  Cox"),  Buckstone,  Scribe,  Dumas 
—  these  are  typical  names  of  the  dramatists 
who  furnished  the  dramatic  fare  for  our 
fathers  in  the  theater.  The  less  said  about  the 
native  drama,  perhaps,  the  better. 

Mrs.  Mowatt's  "  Fashion,"  produced  in  New 
York  in  1845,  was  perhaps  the  first  native 
drama  of  any  considerable  merit.  Epes  Sar- 
gent furnished  a  prologue  which  contained 
these  significant  lines: 

Bah !  homemade  calicoes  are  well  enough, 
But  homemade  dramas  must  be  stupid  stuff: 
Had  it  the  London  stamp 't  would  do;  but  then, 
For  plays  we  lack  the  manners  and  the  men ! 


8     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

Edgar  Allan  Poe  said  the  play  resembled  "  The 
School  for  Scandal "  "  as  the  shell  resembles 
the  living  locust."  But  the  play  had  a  great 
success,  even  in  England.  It  must  have  con- 
tained some  truth  of  observation  in  its  satire 
of  New  York  society.  But  even  the  memory 
of  it  has  passed  away;  nor  did  it  even  then 
stem  the  tide  of  importations  or  inspire  native 
successors.  Twenty-two  years  later  Augustin 
Daly  wrote  "  Under  the  Gaslight,"  and  shortly 
after  "  A  Flash  of  Lightning,"  supposedly  real- 
istic dramas  of  the  day.  Apparently  their 
realism  was  all  of  the  "  real  pump  "  variety, 
not  much  above  the  level  of  present-day  melo- 
drama. The  rescue  of  the  hero  who  had  been 
bound  to  the  railroad  track  by  the  heroine  who 
had  been  locked  in  the  station  was  the  feature 
of  "  Under  the  Gaslight  " !  Bronson  Howard's 
farce,  "  Saratoga,"  produced  in  1870,  some- 
what more  deserved  Mr.  Daly's  catch  phrase 
for  his  new  theater,  ''  contemporaneous  human 
interest."  But  even  that  play  was  antiquated 
in  a  few  years.  Mr.  Daly's  ovn  play,  "  Di- 
vorce," remotely  based  on  a  novel  by  Trollope, 
produced  in  1871,  was  described  as  a  "satire  on 
the  raw,  pretentious,  and  wealth-worshiping 
society  of  the  young  republic."  It  was  very 
popular,  running  for  almost  a  season.  But  it 
led  to  nothing  —  at  least  it  led  Mr.  Daly  to 
nothing.     For  twenty  years  the  stage  at  his 


OUR   INFANT   INDUSTRY  9 

theater  continued  to  show  the  same  endless  list 
of  adaptations  from  the  French  or  German, 
the  classic  comedies,  Shakespeare  (rudely  muti- 
lated in  text  and  clumsily  encumbered  with 
scenery),  with  now  and  then  a  new  play  from 
London.  "  Rip  van  Winkle "  and  "  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin  "  were  the  only  American  plays 
that  endured,  for  reasons  other  than  their 
dramatic  merit,  though  Frank  Mayo's  ''  Davy 
Crockett "  was  picturesque  and  sentimentally 
effective.  Twenty-five  or  thirty  years  ago  Jan- 
auschek  was  playing  "  Meg  Merrilies,"  Booth 
was  playing  "  Hamlet  "  and  his  "  classic  "  rep- 
ertoire, Sothern  was  playing  "  Dundreary," 
John  T.  Raymond  was  amusing  audiences  as 
Micawher,  for  dramatizations  of  Dickens  were 
then  the  vogue.  It  was  all  quite  innocent  and 
edifying,  no  doubt,  and  almighty  artistic,  but 
just  what  it  was  accomplishing  toward  the  de- 
velopment of  an  American  drama,  or  how  in 
its  endless  repetitions  of  the  same  old  thing  it 
was  leading  the  theater  toward  anything  new 
or  better,  is  rather  hard  to  see.  When  the  old 
folks  say  to  us  youngsters,  "  Alas,  the  actors 
are  all  dead  now!  "  let  us  reply,  "  Yes?  Well, 
so  are  most  of  their  plays.  There  has  been 
some  gain,  anyhow.  You  gloried  in  your  actors 
then?  Of  course  you  did;  you  had  to  have 
something  of  your  own  to  glory  in ! " 

But,  curiously  coincident  with  the  rise  of 


10     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

Pinero  and  Jones  in  England  and  keeping  step 
with  the  sudden  spread  of  Continental  influ- 
ence, especially  the  influence  of  Ibsen,  over 
the  English-speaking  stage,  a  native  American 
drama  began  to  struggle  up  that  was  not  mere 
sentimental  treacle  or  feeble  apings  of  out- 
worn models,  but  something  like  an  adult  art, 
something  with  the  tingle  of  reality  about  it. 
American  writers  began  to  seize  hold  of  Amer- 
ican subjects  with  more  than  an  infantile  grip. 
Along  the  path  blazed  by  the  comedies  of 
Bronson  Howard  and  his  "  Shenandoah  "  came 
Gillette's  "  Held  by  the  Enemy,"  and  then  his 
splendid  "  Secret  Service,"  and  finally  James 
A.  Heme's  two  pieces  of  pioneer  realism, 
"  Shore  Acres  "  and  "  Griffith  Davenport,"  the 
latter  produced  not  quite  ten  years  ago.  Clyde 
Fitch,  meanwhile,  had  laid  hold  on  Nathan 
Hale  for  a  dramatic  hero  and  lanced  contem- 
poraneous frivolous  society,  and  Augustus 
Thomas  had  dramatized  various  states  of  the 
Union.  With  the  exception  of  "  Griffith  Dav- 
enport "  (which  was  very  uneven  in  quality) 
these  plays  were  accepted  by  the  public; 
and,  having  accepted  them,  the  public  could 
not  retreat  into  the  past,  nor  could  the  play- 
wright. When  a  child  has  learned  that  he  can 
walk,  he  refuses  to  crawl.  The  American  play- 
wright had  found  his  legs. 

And   the   problem  nowls,   what  use  is  he 


OUR   INFANT   INDUSTRY  11 

making  of  his  legs,  whither  is  he  walking? 
For  the  road  that  the  American  dramatist  took 
when  his  work  was  serious  work,  work  that 
strove  for,  if  it  did  not  always  attain,  dignity 
and  truth,  was  the  road  of  realism.  And  there 
are  many  who  always  wonder,  a  little  need- 
lessly, perhaps,  where  realism  will  lead,  what 
beauty  or  satisfaction  it  can  give  to  us  when 
its  "  photographic  fidelity  "  has  ceased  to  be  a 
novelty. 

Very  few  of  us,  I  fancy,  who  saw  James  A. 
Heme  play  "  Shore  Acres  "  fifteen  years  ago 
have  forgotten  the  final  moments  of  that  play. 
Old  Nathan  el  Berry,  his  troubles  laid,  his  heart 
at  rest,  sent  every  one  to  bed,  walked  to  the 
kitchen  window  and,  scratching  off  a  little 
frost,  peered  out  into  the  winter  night  a  mo- 
ment, then  made  fast  the  doors,  banked  the 
fire,  blew  out  the  lamps,  and,  his  candle  held 
high,  climbed  with  slow,  aged  steps  up  the 
stairs  to  his  chamber.  At  the  landing  he 
turned  and  paused  for  a  last  look  at  the  room 
below,  quite  dim  save  for  the  glow  from  the 
fire  and  the  faint  flicker  of  his  candle  flame. 
Everything  in  the  old  New  England  kitchen 
where  so  much  of  joy  and  tragedy  had  come  to 
fruition,  where  his  life  had  been  lived  and  his 
heart  almost  broken,  rested  peaceful  and  still 
in  the  red  glow,  under  the  benediction  of  his 
eye.      Then   he   passed    across    the   bedroom 


12     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

threshold  and  the  stage  grew  still  darker. 
Through  a  mist  of  cleansing  tears  you  beheld 
for  a  hushed  moment  the  deserted  kitchen  and 
knew  the  power  of  silence,  the  still  soul  of  an 
empty  room.  Then  the  curtain  sank.  It  was 
pantomime  raised  to  poetry,  it  was  the  realism 
of  fact  doing  the  work  of  language,  and  doing 
it  for  once  quite  as  well.  The  play  is  still  pre- 
sented every  season,  though  it  was  written 
fifteen  years  ago.  How  much  deeper  or  more 
poetically,  you  ask,  have  our  playwrights 
wrought  since?  How  far  has  the  prose  drama 
of  contemporary  life  advanced  beyond  the  point 
where  Heme  left  it?  How  much  nearer  is  it 
to  the  ideal  goal  of  literature?  For  surely  a 
domestic  pantomime,  depending  for  its  effect 
absolutely  on  a  stage  and  actors,  cannot  be  con- 
sidered as  literature,  for  it  cannot  be  printed. 

And  the  answer  is  to  be  found,  of  course,  in 
the  native  dramas  which  have  been  written 
since.  Side  by  side  with  an  increasing  readi- 
ness on  the  part  of  the  American  public  to 
patronize  and  enjoy  the  more  advanced  drama 
of  Europe,  especially  the  plays  of  Ibsen,  there 
has  come  over  the  native  writers  an  increasing 
desire  to  comment  on  contemporary  life  as  well 
as  to  reflect  it;  we  are  beginning  to  find  ideas 
in  our  drama.  And  ideas  breed  style,  for  they 
cannot  be  expressed  without  language  and 
form,  and  language  cannot  express  intellectual 


#UR   INFANT   INDUSTRY  13 

processes  unless  it  is  carefully  chosen,  or  form 
unless  it  is  nicely  adjusted. 

But  what  is  an  idea  ?  Heine's  coachman  said, 
"An  idea?  Nu,  nu,  an  idea's  an  idea!  An 
idea  's  any  damn  nonsense  a  man  gets  in  his 
head!  "  It  is  in  this  sense  that  critics  are  sup- 
posed to  use  the  word  when  they  speak  of  the 
drama  of  ideas,  especially  by  those  people  who 
"know  what  they  like."  (Incidentally,  the 
trouble  with  such  people  is  that  they  very  sel- 
dom do  know  what  they  like. )  An  idea  in  the 
drama  may  be  defined  as  rather  more  a  matter 
of  purpose  than  content.  It  is  a  thesis,  to  be 
sure,  an  appeal  to  the  head  as  well  as  to  the 
emotions.  But  in  the  best  dramas  it  is  rather 
felt  than  seen,  fused,  as  it  should  be,  with  the 
dramatic  action;  it  tells  as  dignity,  giving  a 
weight  and  purpose  to  the  play  beyond  the 
moment's  amusement.  It  is  the  author's  sym- 
bol in  his  play  that  a  stage  story  has  its  mean- 
ings and  its  problems,  too,  no  less  than  life; 
for  the  modern  author  regards  his  story  as  a 
piece  of  life.  So  the  idea  in  "  Hamlet "  is  the 
tragedy,  not  of  accident  and  bodily  death,  but 
of  the  irresolute  will,  of  the  mind  "  sicklied  o'er 
with  the  pale  cast  of  thought";  and  "  Hamlet" 
can  be  fully  enjoyed  only  by  stern,  intellectual 
effort.  The  idea  in  "  The  School  for  Scandal  " 
is  plain  enough,  and  it  is  not  expounded  in  the 
screen   scene,   which   is   all   some   later  play- 


14     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  •TO-DAY 

Wrights  have  copied  from  the  play.  The  idea 
in  Sudermann's  "  Magda "  is  individuahsm. 
The  idea  in  each  and  every  one  of  Ibsen's 
plays  shapes  the  story,  is  interwoven  in  the 
action,  rises  like  strange  vapor  into  symbols. 
Yet  "Hamlet,"  "The  School  for  Scandal," 
"Magda,"  "A  Doll's  House,"  are  generally 
accepted,  even  by  those  who  know  what  they 
like,  as  absorbing  stage  stories.  Perhaps  an 
idea  in  a  drama  is  after  all  but  a  sign  that  the 
author  has  brains. 

Well,  our  American  playwrights,  since  the 
Twentieth  Century  put  on  its  baby  shoes  and 
began  to  toddle  toward  boyhood,  have  been 
acquiring  brains.  And  if  there  have  been  but 
one  or  two  native  dramas  written  since  "  Shore 
Acres  "  with  so  much  of  real  poetic  value,  there 
have  been  many  written  with  equal  natural- 
ness of  detail  and  greater  naturalness  of  plot 
and  deeper  intellectual  appeal.  Without  for- 
saking that  truth  to  contemporary  life,  that 
realism  of  speech  and  character  and  incident 
which  was  blazed  as  the  path  the  new  Amer- 
ican drama  should  take,  our  authors  have 
shown  undoubted  signs  of  a  growing  desire 
and  ability  to  go  farther,  to  reflect  on  what 
they  portray,  to  make  the  facts  of  life  illus- 
trate some  truth  of  conduct,  to  fashion  their 
dramas,  not  with  the  outworn  blocks  of  stage 
story,  but  with  the  living  problems  of  the  hour. 


OUR   INFANT   INDUSTRY  16 

We  too,  in  our  modest  little  way,  are  begin- 
ning to  have  a  drama  of  ideas.  And,  in  one 
instance  at  least,  a  playwright  has  gone  far- 
ther still  down  the  rich  road  of  realism  and 
has  found  poetry  at  the  end.  William  Vaughn 
Moody  has  written  "  The  Great  Divide." 

Since  the  century  began  we  have  had  three 
plays  from  Clyde  Fitch  that  have  illustrated 
not  only  his  femininely  facile  observation  of 
the  surface  aspects  of  fashionable  life,  but  a 
preoccupation  with  an  idea  as  well.  "  The 
Climbers,"  *'  The  Girl  with  the  Green  Eyes," 
and  "  The  Truth,"  all  had  a  sincerity  of  pur- 
pose and  more  than  a  passing  interest  as  mere 
stage  stories.  Unfortunately,  Mr.  Fitch  seems 
destined  never  quite  to  keep  a  play  on  a  con- 
sistent level,  if  that  level  is  high  or  seriou's. 
Theatricalness  marred  one  play,  lack  of  inevi- 
tableness  the  second,  and  a  gross  intrusion  of 
buffoonery  the  third.  For  two  acts  "  The 
Truth  "  is  written  with  a  naturalness  of  dia- 
logue, a  quiet,  economic,  inevitable  develojo- 
ment,  a  grasp  of  character  that  rival  the  best 
prose  drama  of  modern  France.  Then  farce 
intrudes ;  or,  if  Mr.  Fitch  objects,  as  he  is  said 
to  do,  that  the  characters  of  the  father  a'nd 
the  Baltimore  boarding-house  lady  are  drawn 
from  life,  something  so  like  farce  that  the 
effect  is  the  same.  The  atmosphere  of  reality 
is  gone,   at  any  rate,  the  unity  of  the  play 


16     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

is  shattered.  Yet,  with  every  shortcoming 
allowed  for,  these  three  plays  by  Mr.  Fitch 
mark  an  advance  in  American  drama  along 
the  road  of  realism  toward  literature,  toward 
the  drama  that  can  be  printed  and  read,  be- 
cause behind  the  actors  and  the  painted  scene 
is  the  idea,  the  appeal  to  the  intelligence,  the 
firm  basis  of  dignity  and  purpose. 

William  Gillette  has  produced  nothing  of 
consequence  since  "  Sherlock  Holmes,"  a  wildly 
improbable  melodrama  made  marvelously  prob- 
able in  the  theater,  not  alone  by  the  ingenuity 
of  its  construction,  but  by  the  naturalness  of 
its  method  in  the  writing  and  the  acting. 
James  A.  Heme  is  dead.  Bronson  Howard 
is  also  dead.  Besides  Mr.  Fitch,  Augustus 
Tihomas  is  alone  of  the  important  men  of 
the  nineties  still  contributing  to  our  stage 
along  the  lines  then  laid  down,  and  his  latest 
ac  hievement,  "  The  Witching  Hour,"  reviewed 
at'  length  elsewhere  in  this  volume,  is  at  once 
the  most  natural,  the  most  thoughtful,  and  the 
m\ost  interesting  of  all  his  works.  It  is,  in  fact, 
one  of  the  best  plays  yet  produced  in  America. 
I  Jut  chiefly  it  is  to  the  new  writers  who  have 
ai'isen  that  we  must  look  for  our  native  drama 
in  the  immediate  future.  Of  them  all  —  alas, 
not  too  numerous  a  band !  —  William  Vaughn 
Moody  .seems  easily  the  leader;  a  judgment  one 
does  not  hesitate  to  make,  though  it  is  based 


OUR   INFANT   INDUSTRY  17 

on  a  single  play.  Mr.  Moody  sprang  full- 
armed  out  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  where 
he  was  a  professor  of  English,  like  Minerva 
from  the  brow  of  Jove;  and  "The  Great 
Divide,"  which  Margaret  Anglin  and  Henry 
Miller  had  brought  East  from  Chicago  with- 
out attracting  any  attention  by  the  way,  swam 
into  our  ken  at  the  Princess  Theater,  New 
York,  on  October  3,  1906,  like  a  new  planet. 
Its  success  was  instantaneous  with  critics  and 
pubHc.  Written  in  a  nervous,  highly  wrought, 
imaginative  prose  that  flashed  out  similes 
worthy  of  Shelley  and  yet  did  no  violence  to 
dramatic  propriety,  the  new  play  gave  the  be- 
holder a  sense  of  style  and  literary  distinction 
as  rare  as  it  was  refreshing.  Discussion 
waged,  and  will  no  doubt  wage  as  long  as  the 
play  is  given,  regarding  the  probability  of  the 
incident  on  which  the  scheme  of  the  action  is 
based,  —  the  continued  acceptance  of  Stephen, 
a  rough  miner,  who  had  come  to  her  cabin 
bent  on  rape,  by  Ruth,  a  girl  of  Puritan  New 
England.  But,  this  premise  once  granted,  the 
action  moves  with  utter  naturalness,  with 
speed,  directness,  and  a  fine  economy  of 
method  to  the  end.  Personally,  I  find  no  diffi- 
culty in  granting  Mr.  Moody  his  premise;  I 
am  willing  to  grant  nearly  anything  as  pos- 
sible in  the  ways  of  a  woman  with  a  man.  But 
if  I  did  find  difficulty,  that  would  not  aft'ect 


18     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

the  value  of  the  play,  which  is  a  drama  of  two 
souls  clashing  each  on  each.  The  external 
means  used  to  bring  them  into  conflict  does 
not  matter  much,  for  the  interest  is  not  there. 
As  a  painter  falsifies  the  light  on  his  landscape 
to  throw  some  salient  object,  the  soul  of  it, 
into  high  relief,  and  thus  wins  perhaps  a  deeper 
truth,  so  Mr.  Moody  might  forgivably  have 
been  more  careless  about  probability  than  he 
was  —  if  he  was  careless  at  all,  which  I  do  not 
for  a  moment  admit. 

A  drama  of  two  souls,  that  is  "  The  Great 
Divide,"  a  struggle  between  the  old  Puritan 
formalism  of  conscience  and  Pragmatism,  be- 
tween what  William  James  would  call  the 
tender-minded  and  the  tough-minded  tempera- 
ments. In  certain  moods  Ruth  and  Stephen 
seem  to  me  very  real  human  beings;  in  other 
moods  they  are  but  abstractions  transcending 
the  personal,  symbols  of  those  inborn  tenden- 
cies of  soul  that  underlie  all  our  emotions,  all 
our  reasonings,  that  are  the  deepest,  the  most 
powerful  forces  in  human  life.  No  other 
American  play  has  ever  gone  so  deep,  has  ever 
seized  hold  of  so  powerful  an  idea;  and  no 
other  American  play  has  ever  wrought  an  idea 
into  a  dramatic  story  with  such  dignity  and 
grace  of  language,  such  poetry  of  image  and 
emotion.  One  is  almost  tempted  to  say  that 
no  other  American  play  has  ever  found  the 


OUR   INFANT   INDUSTRY  19 

soul.  From  a  drunken  impulse  to  rape, 
Stephen  rises  step  by  step  to  nobility,  because 
for  him  the  rightness  of  an  action  is  in  its 
result,  moral  truth  is  found  in  his  own  na- 
ture's shrinking  or  expansion.  Sin  may  be  a 
stepping-stone  to  salvation,  not  because  of  any 
evangelistic  "  repentence,"  but  because  it  shows 
him  the  good  which  he  takes,  letting  the  rest 
go  forgotten.  Ruth,  on  the  other  hand,  though 
a  dim,  primitive  impulse  urged  her  at  first  to 
Stephen,  —  an  impulse  so  deep  that  by  most  of 
us,  perhaps,  it  is  never  felt,  lying  far  down 
in  our  souls,  and  we  say  Ruth's  action  is 
"  grossly  improbable,"  —  was  fettered  by  con- 
science, that  composite  of  a  thousand  years  of 
religious  and  social  formalism.  The  chain  of 
nuggets  Stephen  paid  to  the  other  ruffian  to 
buy  her  for  himself  was  to  her  a  burning  badge 
of  shame,  and  with  true  New  England  chop- 
logic  she  felt  that  she  had  in  some  way  atoned 
when  by  her  own  toil  she  had  bought  it  back. 
It  was  her  scarlet  letter,  no  less  scarlet  for 
the  formality  of  a  marriage  ceremony.  It  is 
surprising,  in  an  American  play,  how  little  the 
marriage  ceremony  figures  in  "  The  Great 
Divide."  Mr.  Moody  has  gone  behind  it.  In 
this  soul-drama  externals  are  burned  away, 
and  primal  things,  becoming  naked,  become 
decent,  become  wonderful.  Ruth  finally  left 
Stephen  for  her  staid  New  England  home,  not 


20     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

able  to  see  the  new  Stephen  who  had  risen 
from  the  old,  not  able  to  forget  the  drunken 
ruffian  who  had  burst  into  her  cabin  bent  on 
rape,  not  able  to  win  out  of  error  the  precious 
good,  but  demanding  a  truth  perfect  from  the 
beginning,  an  absolute  perfection.  And  thus 
she  would  have  wrecked  two  lives  for  a  tradi- 
tion and  violated  the  mystic  impulse  deep  in 
her  heart  that  drove  her  still  toward  Stephen. 
But  he  would  not  have  it  so.  He  followed  her 
East.  He  won  her  fully  for  himself  at  last. 
The  soul  that  faces  morning  and  the  rising 
sun,  that  sees  good  and  evil,  sin  and  righteous- 
ness, as  alike  but  rungs  on  the  ladder  of  hap- 
piness, was  finally  triumphant.  And  the  poet 
who  wrote  this  play,  his  first,  is  still  a  young 
man,  promising  many  new  dramas  for  our 
stage.  He  is  the  most  thoughtful,  imagina- 
tive, and  cultured  playwright  we  now  boast, 
and  his  substantial  success  should  encourage 
more  men  of  literary  training  and  high  ideals 
to  write  for  the  theater.  There  is  plenty  of 
room  for  them. 

Two  plays  that  in  the  seasons  just  past  have 
had  tremendous  vogue  are  "  The  Lion  and  the 
Mouse,"  by  Charles  Klein,  and  "  The  Man  of 
the  Hour,"  by  George  Broadhurst.  Neither 
play  can  take  high  rank  as  a  finished  drama, 
and  neither  author  is  a  newcomer  to  our  the- 
ater, but  both  plays  illustrate  the  increasing 


OUR   INFANT   INDUSTRY  21 

intellectual  drift  of  the  stage.  In  the  former 
the  overshadowing  problem  of  the  trusts  finds 
a  steady,  if  feeble  and  distorted,  reflection;  in 
the  latter,  graft  in  municipal  politics  is  the 
theme.  In  the  former  Mr.  Klein  defeats  a 
billionaire  magnate  by  a  woman's  wit;  in  the 
latter  Mr.  Broadhurst  combats  graft  by  find- 
ing an  honest  candidate  and  electing  him. 
Neither  solution,  perhaps,  is  wholly  convinc- 
ing! But  fifteen  years  ago  no  manager  would 
have  dared  to  set  either  problem  on  the  stage, 
nor  would  it  have  occurred  to  Mr.  Klein  or  Mr. 
Broadhurst  to  ask  him  to  do  so.  Realism  is 
pulling  even  our  weaker  writers  into  line  with 
life  and  stirring  up  their  mental  machinery. 

To  speak  of  "  Ben  Hur  "  or  "  The  Music 
Master,"  the  two  most  popular  plays,  if  the 
number  of  performances  be  taken  as  a  stand- 
ard, that  have  gone  forth  from  Broadway  in 
the  last  decade,  as  examples  of  American  or 
any  other  kind  of  realism  would  be  to  laugh. 
Why  "  Ben  Hur  "  has  been  so  enormously  pat- 
ronized, a  thing  of  bombastic  rhetoric,  inflated 
scenery,  pasteboard  piety,  and  mechanical  ex- 
citement, one  cannot  explain  without  being 
branded  a  hopeless  cynic.  "  The  Music  Mas- 
ter," a  piece  of  mid-Victorian  sentimentality 
for  all  the  external  truthfulness  of  its  setting, 
of  course  won  its  way  into  all  hearts  by  virtue 
of  the  exquisite  and  compelling  art  of  David 


22     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

Warfield.  Public  discernment  in  the  theater  is 
a  slow  growth  and  starts  at  the  top.  Down 
through  each  layer  of  the  public  you  come 
upon  other  layers  still,  to  revel  in  the  paste- 
board piety  of  '*  Ben  Hur  "  or  to  hail  "  Way 
Down  East "  as  a  masterpiece  in  the  same 
breath  with  "  Shore  Acres."  The  success  of 
such  plays  at  any  period  is  not  significant. 
The  critic  of  the  theater,  on  the  watch  for  new 
tendencies,  for  signs  of  growth,  will  find  sig- 
nificant the  success  of  those  plays  written  by 
men  who  have  something  new  to  say.  Among 
such  writers,  besides  Mr.  Moody,  the  seasons 
immediately  past  have  produced  Miss  Rachel 
Crothers  and  Eugene  Walter.  The  former,  in 
"  The  Three  of  Us,"  displayed  a  rare  feeling 
for  quiet,  significant  naturalism,  even  though 
her  third-act  scene  was  the  inevitable  bach- 
elor's apartment,  her  villain  the  inevitable 
woman's  villain  who  never  drew  the  breath  of 
life.  It  is  Miss  Crother's  promise  some  day, 
perhaps,  in  stage  stories  to  bring  a  woman's 
tact  and  insight  to  bear  on  our  vexed  domestic 
problems.  Mr.  Walter's  talent  is  essentially, 
almost  scornfully,  masculine.  Sometimes  one 
very  nearly  accuses  him  of  belonging  to  the 
"  good  red  blood  "  school.  His  merits  are  a 
strong,  if  untutored,  grasp  on  dramatic  effects, 
and  apparently  a  desire,  not  always  controlled 
as  yet,  to  tear  the  fourth  wall  out  of  every 


OUR   INFANT   INDUSTRY  23 

room,  to  get  life  upon  the  stage  even  if  he  has 
to  be  rude  about  it.  He  has  shown  us  two 
plays,  both  in  the  season  of  1907-8,  "  The 
Wolf  "  and  "  Paid  in  Full."  The  former  is  a 
stilted  melodrama  of  the  Canadian  north  woods, 
but  with  something  of  the  forest  gloom  so 
haunting  it  that  you  feel  the  author's  inten- 
tion to  have  been  greater  than  his  achieve- 
ment. The  latter,  reviewed  elsewhere  in  this 
volume,  comes  near  to  being  a  social  study  of 
New  York  life,  realistic,  dramatic,  informed 
with  a  valuable  idea. 

Other  playwrights  we  have  also,  and  one  of 
them,  at  least,  George  Ade,  has  reflected  cer- 
tain phases  of  American  life  as  truthfully  as 
could  be  asked.  "  The  College  Widow  "  was 
a  genre  picture  of  triumphant  skill,  executed 
with  exuberant  yet  loving  humor.  But  Mr. 
Ade  has  no  power  of  dramatic  development. 
He  cannot  penetrate  the  surface.  Percy  Mac- 
Kaye,  a  young  playwright  of  unusual  scholar- 
ship and  unbending  idealism,  is  the  only  one 
of  our  newer  dramatic  authors  to  write  in 
verse  for  the  practical  theater.  Two  of  his 
plays,  "  The  Canterbury  Pilgrims,"  a  poetic 
comedy  with  Chaucer  and  the  Wife  of  Bath 
as  the  leading  characters,  and  "  Fenris  the 
Wolf,"  a  Wagnerian  libretto,  have  not  been 
produced,  but  Miss  Marlowe  has  played  his 
"  Jeanne  d'Arc  "  both  here  and  in  London,  and 


24     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

Bertha  Kalisch  produced  his  "  Sappho  and 
Phaon,"  a  tragedy.  Neither  was  successful 
enough  to  warrant  the  assertion  that  Mr. 
IMacKaye  is  the  dramatic  poet  to  lead  the 
wandering  tribes  of  the  Twentieth  Century 
into  the  promised  land  of  blank  verse.  Mr. 
MacKaye's  prose  drama,  **  The  Scarecrow," 
based  on  Hawthorne's  "  Feathertop,"  seems  at 
present  his  most  effective  work,  though  it  has 
not  yet  been  shown  save  between  covers.  Its 
demands  on  the  scenic  artist  and  on  the  lead- 
ing actor  are  severe,  but  there  is  an  uncanny 
suggestion  of  the  supernatural  in  it  and  a 
pathos  cross  shot  with  the  grim  humor  of 
Hawthorne  which  ought  to  place  it  on  the 
stage.  It  is  the  least  conventional  in  theme 
and  treatment  of  its  author's  plays,  and  the 
most  directly  wrought.  Mr.  MacKaye  has  also 
written  a  prose  comedy  of  character,  "  Mater," 
which  will  be  produced  by  Henry  Miller. 
Here,  with  light  and  graceful  touch,  the  au- 
thor has  a  little  fun  with  the  unbending  Social- 
ists and  political  reformers,  and  in  the  person 
of  Mater  herself,  a  lyrical  child-woman  who 
impersonates  her  own  daughter  to  aid  her  son, 
to  the  disgust  of  the  daughter  and  the  rage  of 
the  son,  but  who  in  reality  is  the  most  sensible 
and  efificient  person  in  the  play,  he  has  created  a 
character  of  charm  and  originality.  The  moral 
of  *'  Mater  "  is  not,  perhaps,  quite  clear  —  if 


OUR   INFANT   INDUSTRY  25 

that  is  a  fault.  The  satire  is  too  gentle  to 
point  a  purpose,  save  the  purpose  to  show  a 
curious  type  of  New  England  woman.  Mr. 
MacKaye  as  dramatist  lacks  a  certain  clarity 
and  incisiveness.  His  plays  do  not  quite  bite. 
But  no  one  can  spend  an  hour  in  his  presence 
without  feeling  the  tonic  of  his  fine  spirit,  of 
his  sincerity  and  idealism.  Like  Mr.  Moody, 
he  has  the  grace  of  culture  and  of  lyric  speech. 
He  will  surely  find  his  honorable  place  on  our 
stage,  though  it  will  hardly  be  by  fleeing  to 
Greek  or  Norse  mythology. 

These  authors,  then,  who  are  bringing  to 
bear  on  the  problem  of  creating  an  American 
drama  the  largest  amount  of  dramatic  skill, 
truthful  observation,  intelligent  reflection,  and 
passion  for  reality  are  the  ones  who  are  keep- 
ing our  drama  connected  with  life,  who  are 
leading  our  stage  on  toward  better  things  by 
making  it  a  vital  force  in  the  community.  Only 
two  of  them,  it  will  be  noted,  are  poets.  They 
alone  have  the  sense  of  literary  style  to  strike 
out  beautiful  language.  "  The  Great  Divide  " 
and  Mr.  MacKaye's  dramas  alone  perhaps 
fully  bear  the  test  of  print.  We  need  not 
worry,  however.  Our  stage  is  not  yet  so 
flooded  with  reality  that  we  need  alarm  our- 
selves about  the  drift  of  reahsm.  We  shall 
need  more  of  it  before  we  need  less,  and  it  is 
not  by  fleeing  reality  but  by  plunging  through 


26  THE   AJMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

it  that,  for  the  modern  mind,  the  deeper  truth 
is  found.  Already  the  intellectual  thesis  is 
creeping  into  our  plays  of  contemporary  life. 
The  mere  scenic  fidelity  of  Belasco  seems  tame, 
old-fashioned.  Already  Mr.  Moody  has  broken 
through  into  spiritual  poetry,  and  Mr.  Thomas 
has  brought  the  occult  home  to  daily  life.  The 
realists  may  very  well  be  left  to  themselves. 
They  will  work  out  their  own  dramatic  salva- 
tion —  and  ours.  They  are  on  the  one  inevi- 
table road  to-day.  Let  us  leave  them  with  the 
words  of  T.  E.  Brown,  the  Manx  poet,  who, 
in  one  of  those  wonderful  letters  of  his,  wrote : 

"  You  comfort  me  much  by  kind  words  of 
sympathy.  I  hope  you  don't  often  find  me  in 
a  melancholic  mood.  But  now  and  then  I  dare 
say  I  'm  rather  like  an  old  cat ;  '  slickin'  mee- 
self  with  mee  own  slaver.'  You  Ve  seen  the 
like?  You  stroke  them  a  bit,  and  they're 
pleased  enough  with  that  for  a  change.  But 
they  go  on,  slick,  slick,  slick,  till  the  melan- 
choly is  gone,  and  behould  ye!  they  're  out  in 
the  bushes  after  them  blackbirds,  '  as  bowl'  as 
bowl'.'  " 

There  still  are  blackbirds  and  there  still  is 
blank  verse.  But  just  now  we  must  slick,  slick, 
slick. 


"THE  WITCHING    HOUR" 

(Hackett,  November   i8,   1907) 

IT  is  only  too  easy  to  write  of  Augus- 
tus Thomas's  new  play,  "  The  Witching 
Hour,"  produced  with  John  Mason  in  the 
leading  part.  From  no  matter  what  point  of 
view  you  survey  this  drama  it  repays  you  with 
humor,  or  emotion,  or  subject  for  debate,  or 
wonder  at  Mr.  Thomas's  protean  personality, 
or,  if  you  are  a  psychic  researcher,  a  disci- 
ple's joy.  It  was  not  many  weeks  before  its 
production  that  Mr.  Thomas  exhibited  "  The 
Ranger  "  at  Wallack's  Theatre,  which,  if  it  is 
remembered  at  all,  will  be  recalled  as  a  clumsy, 
trivial,  and  ineffective  melodrama,  devoid  alike 
of  style  and  idea.  "  The  Witching  Hour,"  on 
the  other  hand,  is  instinct  with  dramatic  style, 
and  finely  and  firmly  wrought  into  its  texture, 
suspended  in  every  act  and  almost  every  situa- 
tion, is  an  idea.  The  two  plays  are  as  far 
apart  as  the  poles  —  almost  as  far  apart  as 
Ibsen  and  Theodore  Kremer.  It  seems  almost 
incredible  that  the  same  man  could  have  written 
them  at  the  same  period  of  his  career.  Per- 
haps he  did  n't.    Perhaps  "  The  Ranger  "  was 


28    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

a  skeleton  fished  up  from  that  trunk  all  au- 
thors keep  under  their  beds,  and  its  bones 
decked  out  to  fill  an  order.  Which  is  another 
argument  for  keeping  the  lid  down !  Certainly, 
however,  "  The  Witching  Hour  "  was  written 
con  amove,  and  represents  on  the  whole  the 
ripest  work  Mr.  Thomas  has  yet  put  forth.  It 
represents  work  so  ripe,  indeed,  that  it  bears 
about  it  in  every  line  traces  of  the  most  mod- 
ern influences;  its  appeal  is  ever  half  to  the 
intellect,  though  its  grip  on  the  mere  theatrical 
"story"  is  firm  and  sure;  it  is  a  successful 
venture  by  the  author  of  '*  Arizona  "  into  the 
drama  of  ideas.  With  the  most  humble  apolo- 
gies to  Mr.  Thomas,  whose  prejudices  on  the 
subject  have  been  expressed,  one  even  ventures 
to  say  it  is  an  example  of  Ibsen  in  America. 

There  is  something  so  slyly  comical  in  that 
last  idea  that  one  is  tempted  to  pause  and  dally 
with  it.  Unless  a  none  too  trustworthy  mem- 
ory has  entirely  forsaken  us,  Mr.  Thomas  has 
on  more  than  one  occasion  repudiated  any  in- 
terest in  Ibsen;  he  has  scorned  his  subject 
matter  and  spelled  America  large,  after  the 
fashion  of  speakers  full  of  baked  meats.  Yet 
here  he  is  writing  a  drama  where  ''  the  ghost 
of  a  woman  influenced  a  decision  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States  " ;  where 
telepathy  and  hypnotism  play  leading  roles; 
where  the  mental  attitude  of  five  hundred  thou- 


"THE  WITCHING   HOUR"  29 

sand  excited  Kentuckians  influences  a  jury 
shut  up  in  a  room ;  where,  in  short,  the  things 
which  abide  "  below  the  threshold  "  of  human 
consciousness,  the  dim,  unproved,  disturbing 
facts  of  life  —  if  facts  they  be  —  are  the  ghostly 
protagonists  of  the  play.  Does  Mr.  Thomas 
suppose  he  could  have  done  this  if  Ibsen  had 
not  shown  him  how,  —  yes,  and  shown  the  pub- 
lic how  to  understand  him  ?  Does  he  suppose  — 
granting  that  he  could  have  written  the  play 
fifteen  years  ago  —  the  Hackett  Theater  would 
have  been  packed  at  every  performance  to  see 
it?  If  he  likes,  let  us  just  attribute  the  influ- 
ence to  telepathy.  Let  us  say  he  never  saw  an 
Ibsen  play  performed,  never  read  one,  never 
heard  of  "The  Master  Builder."  Let  us  con- 
ceive of  him  as  shut  up  in  New  Rochelle,  far 
from  the  madding  drama,  where  news  from 
the  outer  world  does  not  penetrate.  But  five 
hundred  thousand  of  his  fellow  countrymen 
have  been  whipped  into  reluctant  attendance 
on  the  Ibsen  drama,  and  there  has  dawned  on 
them  a  great  light,  on  them  and  on  certain 
men  who  write  plays  for  them.  They  have 
become  dissatisfied  with  the  artificial,  the  con- 
ventional, the  old  trite  repetitions  of  stage  for- 
mulas. They  have  come  to  look  for  a  tech- 
nique that  should  go  below  the  mere  tricks  of 
climax  and  surprise,  for  a  picture  of  life  that 
should  go  deeper  than  theatrical  convention, 


80     THE   AIVIERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

for  realism  that  should  be  real  and  situations 
that  should  call  not  alone  for  the  easy  laugh 
or  tear,  but  for  those  doubts  and  puzzles  and 
searching  speculations  that  make  life  at  once 
so  strange  and  so  worth  while.  And  the  com- 
bined thoughts  about  the  drama  of  these  five 
hundred  thousand  did  beat  upon  New  Rochelle 
and  upon  the  brain  of  Mr.  Thomas,  and,  lo! 
he  did  write  "  The  Witching  Hour."  And 
when  he  surveyed  his  work  and  saw  that  it 
was  good,  did  he  parody  Frank  Hardmuth  in 
Act  III  and  say,  "  I  wonder  how  in  hell  I  did 
that  ?  "  Or  did  he  communicate  at  once  with 
Professor  Hyslop?  Perhaps  he  even  made  the 
forty-five  minute  trip  to  Broadway  and  saw 
"  The  Master  Builder."    Who  knows? 

Which  brings  us  down  to  the  serious  busi- 
ness at  hand:  What  is  there  in  telepathy?  It 
may  be  said  at  once  that  with  the  theatrical 
effectiveness  of  "  The  Witching  Hour  "  there 
is  no  quarrel,  nor  with  the  acting  of  it.  As 
the  copper  wire  is  in  a  sense  the  first  essential 
to  the  transmission  of  a  telephone  message,  so 
a  well  made,  well  told  story  is  the  first  essential 
to  the  transmission  of  such  a  message  as  Mr. 
Thomas  speaks  in  this  play.  And  that  essen- 
tial he  has  in  the  main  admirably  supplied,  and 
has  been  uncommonly  well  aided  by  his  players. 
In  spite  of  the  unusual  quality  of  so  many 
causes  —  telepathy  and  hypnotism  —  the  effects 


"THE   WITCHING   HOUR"  31 

are  handled  with  quiet,  truthful  realism,  the 
story  progresses  with  the  smoothness  and  pre- 
cision of  machinery,  there  is  no  violence  done 
to  probabilities  either  of  incident  or  character, 
excepting,  for  the  time  being,  such  violences 
as  may  inhere  in  the  telepathic  and  hypnotic 
premises.  And  even  these  are  so  handled  that 
while  the  play  is  in  action  they  carry  you,  how- 
ever skeptic,  to  a  kind  of  momentary  belief. 

The  story  is  not  intricate.  The  scene  opens 
in  Louisville,  in  the  richly  furnished  home  of 
Jack  BrookHeld,  a  professional  gambler  and  art 
connoisseur,  a  figure  suggested,  perhaps,  by 
Richard  Canfield.  The  game  in  Jack  Brook- 
■field's  house  is  always  "  on  the  square."  He 
is,  according  to  his  lights,  a  man  of  honor, 
with  a  warm,  affectionate  nature.  But  twenty 
years  before,  he  says,  he  found  wild  oats  so 
profitable  that  he  stayed  in  that  branch  of  the 
grain  business.  He  has  a  niece,  his  ward,  who 
is  his  pet.  She  has  two  suitors,  Frank  Hard- 
muth,  assistant  prosecuting  attorney,  a  "  prac- 
tical politician "  and  rather  too  savory  of 
stage  villainy  to  be  wholly  convincing,  and 
Clay  Whipple,  a  charming  youth,  son  of  a 
woman  who  years  before  would  have  married 
Brookfield  but  for  his  profession.  (She  is  prov- 
identially a  widow  when  the  play  begins,  so 
that  Jack  can  win  her  in  the  end.)  The  time 
is  after  midnight  when  the  first-act  curtain 


82    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

rises  —  the  witching  hour.  BrookHeld  is  en- 
tertaining Mrs.  Whipple,  Clay,  and  others. 
There  is  no  game  while  they  are  there.  Jus- 
tice Prentice,  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court,  a  stranger  to  Brookfield,  calls  to  see  a 
certain  Corot,  a  genuine  Corot  —  the  play- 
wright must  be  granted  some  license!  Here 
is  the  first  hint  of  the  underlying  idea  of  the 
drama.  For  as  the  Justice  looks  at  the  picture 
he  says,  "  No,  I  could  n't  pay  six  thousand  five 
hundred  dollars."  Brookfield  is  amazed.  He 
has  not  spoken,  but  that  was  the  price  he  was 
thinking  to  himself.  He  speaks  of  it  to  the 
Justice,  who  tells  him  that  such  phenomena  of 
thought  transference  are  acknowledged  by  sci- 
ence, and  that  he  is  apparently  a  man  of  excep- 
tional powers  in  such  direction.  The  Justice 
departs,  promising  to  send  Jack  books  on  the 
subject.  Jack's  puzzled  musings  are  rudely 
interrupted  by  the  entrance  of  a  drunken  young 
man  who  has  been  forcing  Clay  to  look  at  his 
scarf  pin,  a  cat's-eye.  Clay  has  an  inherited 
neurasthenic  aversion  to  that  stone.  As  the 
other  man  shoves  it  under  his  face,  in  a  fit  of 
blind  panic  he  strikes  his  tormentor  with  a 
huge  ivory  paper  knife,  felling  him  to  the 
floor,  dead. 

The  second  act  shifts  the  scene  to  Justice 
Prentice's  rooms  in  Washington,  one  year  later. 
Again  it  is  midnight.     Justice  Prentice  and 


"THE  WITCHING   HOUR"  8S 

Justice  Henderson  are  sitting  together.  The 
one  is  a  lover  of  poetry  and  pictures,  a  behever 
in  the  occult,  sweetly,  lovably  sentimental ;  the 
other  is  dry,  matter-of-fact,  shrewdly  humor- 
ous. The  scene  between  them,  delicately 
wrought,  written  in  language  that  differenti- 
ates the  two  and  yet  brands  both  of  them  as 
men  of  long  legal  training,  quietly  comic  and 
yet  informing  of  the  events  of  the  play,  is  one 
of  the  most  nearly  flawless  passages  in  modern 
American  drama.  Clay,  it  seems,  was  sen- 
tenced to  be  hanged,  but  the  case  has  been 
carried  on  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court  on  a 
constitutional  point.  Justice  Prentice  refuses 
to  agree  with  his  bench-mate  that  a  new  trial 
should  be  granted.  The  latter  departs  as 
Brookfield  enters.  Jack  tells  the  Justice  of  his 
development  in  telepathic  and  hypnotic  powers. 
He  is  quite  evidently  disturbed,  and  the  Justice 
still  further  disturbs  him  by  suggesting  that 
such  powers  carry  grave  responsibilities  of 
right  living  and  thinking.  Then  Clay's  mother 
and  his  sweetheart  —  Jack's  niece  —  come  in. 
Here  Mr.  Thomas  perhaps  stretches  the 
long  arm  of  coincidence  pretty  far.  Yet  it  is 
not  an  impossible  circumstance.  Mrs.  Whipple, 
it  is  disclosed,  is  the  daughter  of  the  Justice's 
boyhood  sweetheart,  whom  for  some  reason  he 
did  not  marry.  Mrs.  Whipple  has  just  dis- 
covered in  an  old  album  of  her  mother's  a  letter 

3 


S4     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

from  the  Justice  bearing  on  her  aversion  to 
cat's-eyes.  Justice  Prentice  recalls  the  circum- 
stance, and  declares  that  here  is  new  evidence ; 
he  will  go  to  Louisville  himself  to  testify  in  a 
new  trial.  He  lies  nobly.  He  says  he  had 
already  made  up  his  mind  to  agree  for  a  new 
trial  on  the  constitutional  point  already  raised. 
Left  alone,  he  listens  as  the  clock  strikes  two. 
He  picks  up  a  miniature  of  his  old  sweetheart. 
"  Your  ghost  was  in  this  room  to-night,"  he 
says,  "  and  influenced  a  decision  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States." 

The  third  act  is  again  in  BrookHeld's  house, 
late  at  night.  The  new  trial  is  over,  the  jury 
out,  —  not  a  novel  way  of  gaining  suspense, 
but  given  an  entirely  new  import  by  Mr. 
Thomas,  for,  as  he  waits,  BrookHeld  attempts 
by  telepathy  to  influence  one  of  the  jurymen. 
Furthermore,  possessing  the  knowledge  that 
Jiardmiith  planned  the  assassination  of  the 
Governor  of  Kentucky  a  few  years  before, 
he  has  made  that  charge  in  the  newspapers. 
I^ardmuth,  now  the  prosecuting  attorney,  has 
hounded  Clay  from  jealousy.  The  charges 
against  him,  read  by  five  hundred  thousand 
excited  Kentuckians,  are  bound  to  stir  up  pop- 
ular sentiment  in  Clay's  behalf.  Going  fur- 
ther in  his  belief  in  telepathy  than  BrookHeld, 
Justice  Prentice  affirms  that  five  hundred  thou- 
sand people  cannot  all  be  thinking  about  one 


"THE  WITCHING   HOUR"  35 

thing  without  influencing  a  jury,  though  locked 
up  in  a  courthouse.  Apparently  Mr.  Thomas 
would  have  us  believe  so  too,  for  Clay  is  set 
free.  Then  Hardmuth  rushes  in  to  shoot 
BrookHeld,  shoving  a  revolver  against  his 
breast.  Jack  switches  a  light  on  over  his  foe's 
face,  startling  him  into  attention.  "  You  can't 
shoot  me,"  he  says.  "  You  can't  pull  that 
trigger.  You  can't  even  hold  that  gun."  The 
gun  falls  with  a  crash  to  the  floor.  "  I  'd  like 
to  know  how  in  hell  you  did  that !  "  says  the 
dazed  Hardmuth  as  the  curtain  falls. 

The  last  act,  once  more  at  midnight,  unlike 
some  last  acts,  takes  the  story  into  new  regions ; 
the  play  is  not  done  when  the  conventional 
climax  has  been  reached.  Experimenting  with 
a  deliciously  comical  Kentucky  sport,  Brook- 
Held  finds  that  he  can  tell  what  cards  the  other 
holds.  He  feels  that  unconsciously  he  has  been 
exercising  such  power  all  his  life,  which  ex- 
plains his  "  luck."  Just  so,  in  a  less  definite 
way.  Master  Builder  Solness  accounted  for  his 
luck.  With  that  discovery  his  card  playing  is 
forever  over.  His  sister  tells  him  that  his  be- 
lief in  his  power  to  influence  the  thoughts  of 
others  is  foolish,  morbid.  "  That  is  something 
we  shall  never  know  in  this  life,"  he  answers, 
"  but  we  can  all  live  as  if  it  were  true." 
Against  the  protest  of  the  other  characters,  he 
tells  Clay  that  he  holds  the  fatal  cat's-eye  in 


36     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE    OF   TO-DAY 

his  closed  fist,  and  makes  the  trembhng  boy 
put  his  hand  over  it.  Clay  thrills  with  horror 
and  aversion.  Brookfield  lets  him  suffer  to  the 
full.  Then  he  opens  his  palm,  disclosing  —  a 
latchkey!  The  boy  is  cured.  Finally,  his  last 
action  is  to  help  Hardmuth  escape  out  of  the 
State,  for  the  assassination  Hardmuth  had 
planned  Brookfield  had  one  day  conceived  as 
possible  in  exactly  the  way  it  was  executed. 
Knowing  the  influence  he  had  always  exerted 
over  Hardmuth,  he  felt  himself  in  a  measure 
guilty  (again  we  recall  the  Master  Builder 
and  his  brooding  conscience).  So  the  play 
closes.  The  mild  "  love  interests,"  that  have 
neither  obtruded  nor  been  missed,  are,  it  might 
be  added,  satisfactorily  adjusted,  but  the  real 
interest  has  been  in  BrookHeld's  adventures 
amid  subconscious  phenomena,  and  in  the  les- 
son Mr.  Thomas  would  have  them  teach  —  that 
our  thoughts  are  dynamic  as  well  as  our  words, 
that  human  responsibility  is  a  more  terrible 
thing  than  some  of  us  know  or  admit. 

The  play  is  beautifully  acted,  to  aid  in  the 
illusion.  John  Mason  may  always  be  relied  on 
for  a  good  performance  in  any  part.  Here  he 
is  the  gentleman  gambler  with  artistic  tastes 
who  won  his  way  to  a  fine  cleanliness  and 
strength  of  character.  His  growth  of  char- 
acter, still  more  his  puzzled  wrestling  with 
psychic  phenomena,   are   firmly,   quietly,   and 


"THE   WITCHING   HOUR"  37 

finely  rendered  by  Mr.  Mason.  But  the  most 
notable  performance,  in  some  ways,  is  that  of 
Russ  Whytal  as  Justice  Prentice.  His  work 
stands  out  for  a  single  very  definite  reason. 
He  is  called  upon  to  portray  a  Supreme  Court 
Justice,  a  man  of  great  intellectual  force  and 
dignity  and  deep  spiritual  nature ;  and  he  does 
it.  How  many  times  we  have  seen  cabinet  min- 
isters, statesmen,  poets,  generals,  imaginary 
or  drawn  from  history,  represented  on  the 
stage,  and  how  seldom  have  they  been  more 
than  so  many  actors  trying  to  appear  grave, 
or  learned,  or  profound!  What  is  more  sad 
than  the  sight  of  the  ordinary  actor  affecting 
intellectual  profundity?  It  is  as  incongruous 
as  would  be  the  sight  of  President  Eliot  or 
William  James  playing  pool  in  the  Lambs  Club. 
The  old-time  actors  had  a  way  of  getting 
around  the  difficulty;  they  did  it  by  means  of 
a  statuesque  demeanor,  a  sonorous  voice,  and, 
if  possible,  blank-verse  dialogue.  But  men  of 
intellectual  profundity  are  seldom  of  statu- 
esque demeanor,  nor  are  their  voices  univer- 
sally sonorous ;  and  their  conversation  does  not 
in  ordinary  circumstances  differ  materially 
from  our  own,  except  there  is  less  of  it.  The 
modern  actor  in  a  modern  play,  if  his  author 
is  unwise  enough  to  give  him  a  man  of  intel- 
lectual force  to  portray,  is  confronted  by  a 
task  far  more  difficult  perhaps  than  many  a 


38     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

"  classic "  role  presents.  Such  a  task  Russ 
Whytal  accomplishes  with  apparent  ease.  How 
does  he  do  it?  Not  by  any  affectations  of 
dignity,  any  posturings  of  grave  learnedness, 
any  pomposities  or  strut.  He  was  wise  enough 
to  know  that  such  things  are  of  the  traditional 
theater.  But  he  does  it  by  observing  life  itself, 
by  maintaining  a  simple,  unaffected  bearing, 
the  smiling,  kindly  naturalness  of  a  man  truly 
large  and  wise.  Perhaps  Mr.  Whytal  has 
mingled  often  with  such  men  —  as  it  was 
Booth's  object  in  founding  the  Players  Club 
that  his  fellows  should  do,  for  Booth  was  a 
truly  large  and  wise  man  himself  and  saw  the 
dangers  that  beset  the  actor.  Surely  Mr. 
Whytal  has  observed  them,  understood  them, 
understood  the  particular  character  of  Judge 
Prentice.  And  he  has  imitated  them,  not  other 
actors ;  he  has  given  to  his  Judge  not  only  the 
bearing  of  intellectual  force,  but  of  that  pecu- 
liar judicial  force  which  subtly  differentiates 
a  justice  from  his  fellows.  Mr.  Whytal's  per- 
formance is  essentially  realistic,  essentially 
modern ;  it  belongs  in  spirit  to  the  new  drama. 
And  yet  what  scoffer,  what  ancient  graybeard, 
can  say  that  it  is  not  lovely,  that  it  is  not  indeed 
poetic? 

Again  we  are  brought  to  the  question,  What 
is  there  in  telepathy?  If  there  is  a  better  ques- 
tion to  start  a  discussion  than  this,  the  writer 


"THE   WITCHING   HOUR"  39 

has  yet  to  find  it.  There  is  a  well-known  artist 
in  New  York  who  affirms,  and  whose  wife  sup- 
ports him,  that  before  their  marriage  he  could 
will  her  to  do  so  and  so  when  she  was  absent 
from  him  and  she  would  do  it;  and  that  since 
their  marriage,  if  he  is  reading,  say,  a  tale  of 
Poe  downstairs  at  2  a.  m.  and  gasps  at  a  shiv- 
ery climax,  she  will  scream  in  her  sleep  up  in 
the  chamber.  Instances  of  the  case  in  hand 
in  the  play  —  the  reading  of  cards  by  telepathy 
—  can  be  recited  doubtless  by  the  score  by  be- 
lievers. On  the  other  hand,  in  the  1906  edi- 
tion of  Bramwell's  work  on  "  Hypnotism  "  he 
says:  "After  many  years  of  hypnotic  work  and 
frequent  opportunities  of  investigating  the  ex- 
periments of  others,  I  have  seen  nothing, 
absolutely  nothing,  which  might  be  fairly  con- 
sidered as  affording  even  the  slightest  evidence 
of  the  existence  of  telepathy,  or  any  of  the 
so-called  '  occult '  phenomena."  He  then  de- 
scribes a  series  of  experiments  in  reading  cards 
conducted  by  a  committee  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research,  where  the  subjects  were 
generally  hypnotized,  and  so  abnormally  sus- 
ceptible {Brookficld  in  the  play  was  not  in 
a  hypnotic  state),  and  states  that  the  percent- 
age of  correct  guesses  fell  "  far  below  the 
number  which  ought  to  have  been  reached  ac- 
cording to  the  laws  of  chance."  But  he  leaves 
Mr.  Thomas  this  loophole:     "Despite  all  this 


40     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

it  would  be  unphilosophic  to  deny  the  possi- 
bility of  telepathy,  and  I  am  quite  ready  to  be 
convinced  of  its  existence  if  any  one  can  divine 
even  as  few  as  six  out  of  every  dozen  cards 
selected  by  the  operator  under  circumstances 
similar  to  those  described."  But  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  in  a  recent  number  of  Harper's 
Monthly,  says :  "  The  first  fact  established  by 
the  society's  labor  was  the  reality  of  telepathy 
—  that  is  to  say,  of  the  apparently  direct  action 
of  one  mind  on  another  by  means  unknown  to 
science.  That  a  thought  or  image  or  impres- 
sion or  emotion  in  the  mind  of  one  person  can 
arouse  a  similar  impression  in  the  mind  of  an- 
other person  sufficiently  sympathetic  and  suffi- 
ciently at  leisure  to  attend  and  record  the  im- 
pression is  now  proved.  But  the  mechanism 
whereby  it  is  done,  or  even  if  there  is  anything 
that  can  be  likened  to  physical  mechanism  at 
all,  is  still  unknown."  The  truth  is,  science 
as  yet  knows  nothing  about  telepathy,  thought 
transference,  and  the  like.  If  it  cannot  very 
stoutly  affirm,  neither  can  it  deny.  The  whole 
subject  lies  in  the  misty  borderland  of  this 
world  of  mind  and  matter.  And  whatever  Mr. 
Thomas  himself  believes,  he  hit  on  a  subtle  way 
alike  to  confound  his  critics  and  to  stimulate 
and  excite  the  interest  of  his  audiences. 

But  when  we  come  to  hypnotism,  science  has 
a  word  to  say.    Here  we  are  still  on  debatable 


"THE   WITCHING   HOUR"  41 

ground,  to  be  sure,  but  ground  where  some 
milestones  already  emerge  from  the  mist; 
some  things  are  clear  and  certain.  There  has 
been  and  still  is  much  popular  misunderstand- 
ing of  hypnotism;  much  hysterical  rot  is  be- 
lieved about  it.  Braid  found  it  a  superstition, 
dominated  by  the  theories  of  mesmerism  (the 
transference  of  "  vital  fluid  "  from  operator  to 
subject)  in  1841.  When  he  died,  in  i860,  he 
left  it  on  the  way  to  becoming  a  science. 
He  had  shown  that  the  hypnotic  state  (the 
name  is  his  as  well  as  the  scientific  affirmation 
of  the  facts)  is  not  objective  but  subjective. 
And  he  was  in  a  way  to  the  theory  now  pretty 
generally  held  that  the  hypnotic  state  is  but 
an  unloosing  of  the  forces  of  the  "  subliminal 
self,"  which  recent  psychology  has  shown  find 
their  way  to  influence  even  "  normal "  actions 
and  play  a  great  part  in  the  religious  life.  It 
is  absurd  that  only  certain  people  can  hypnotize 
or  be  hypnotized.  Any  intelligent  doctor  can  be 
taught  the  trick;  it  can  even  be  taught  to  a 
subject  so  that  he  can  hypnotize  himself.  And 
it  has  been  proved  that  about  ninety-four  per 
cent  of  the  adult  human  race  are  capable  of 
being  hypnotized.  Of  this  six  per  cent  re- 
mainder a  large  portion  is  made  up  of  the  im- 
becile and  insane,  who  cannot  be  influenced. 
Another  error  still  prevalent  is  that  weak- 
willed  people  are  more  easily  subjected.     The 


42     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

contrary  is  the  case,  for,  as  a  rule,  fixity  of  at- 
tention is  required  to  bring  about  the  hypnotic 
state.  But  the  chief  popular  error  that  mod- 
ern practice  has  tended  to  disprove,  almost 
without  a  shadow  of  question,  is  the  pictur- 
esque notion  that  the  hypnotized  subject  loses 
his  volitional  power,  is  at  the  mercy  of  the 
man  who  has  hypnotized  him.  In  1897  Bern- 
heim  still  maintained  that  five  out  of  a  hun- 
dred subjects  could  be  made  to  do  anything; 
that  is,  to  commit  crimes  or  acts  contrary  to 
their  normal  impulses  and  moral  sense.  But 
other  and  more  recent  investigations  take  away 
even  these  five,  and  declare  that  not  only  in  the 
hypnotic  state  is  the  volitional  power  alive,  but 
the  moral  sense  is  even  keener  than  at  other 
times.  You  cannot  make  a  subject  do  what  he 
absolutely  does  n't  want  to  do,  is  the  latest 
dictum.  Finally,  it  was  stated  by  Braid  that 
no  one  can  be  "  affected  by  hypnotism  at  any 
stage  of  the  process  unless  by  voluntary  com- 
pliance," and  it  is  equally  certain  to-day  that 
mere  fear  of  hypnotism  absolutely  precludes 
its  possibility.  There  cannot  be  an  unwilling 
subject. 

The  application  of  this  to  "  The  Witching 
Hour  "  is  quite  apparent.  BrookHeld  saves  his 
life  by  hypnotizing  a  man  who  has  jammed  a 
revolver  against  his  breast  to  shoot.  "  I  'd  like 
to  know  how  in  hell  you  did  that !  "  says  the 


"THE   WITCHING   HOUR"  43 

foiled  villain,  coming  out  of  his  "  sleep  "  with 
astonishing  rapidity. 

Precisely.  That  is  the  question  you  too  ask 
when  you  leave  the  playhouse.  It  is  to  the 
credit  of  Mr.  Thomas's  story-telling  ability 
that  if  you  are  easily  moved  in  the  theater  you 
don't  ask  it  on  the  spot.  That  BrookHeld  should 
hypnotize  a  man  in  the  flash  of  an  eye,  espe- 
cially a  man  over  whom  he  had  exerted  an  in- 
fluence for  some  years,  is  quite  believable,  pro- 
vided the  man  consented.  Many  physicians 
can  hypnotize  as  quickly.  But  that  he  should 
hypnotize  a  man  who  most  certainly  was  not 
giving  his  consent,  and  should  make  him  do 
the  very  thing  he  most  certainly  did  not  want 
to  do,  is  a  hard  pill  to  swallow.  It  is  true  that 
Hardmuth  did  not  expect  to  be  hypnotized  and 
so  was  not  actively,  only  negatively,  opposed. 
It  is  true  that  the  suggestions  followed  were 
not  contrary  to  his  moral  sense,  but  in  line 
with  it,  not  to  shoot,  but  to  refrain  from  shoot- 
ing. And  it  is  true,  as  a  physician  has  pointed 
out,  that  his  mind  was  tremendously  concen- 
trated, and  so  in  one  sense  prepared  for  hyp- 
notic influence.  It  is  also  true  that  there  are 
no  cases  on  record  in  the  scientific  libraries  of 
hypnotism  used  as  a  means  of  self-defence 
against  a  murderer,  as  a  kind  of  mental  jiu- 
jitsu.  Perhaps  nobody  can  say  without  danger 
of  error  —  certainly  no  mere  dramatic  reporter 


44     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

—  that  this  cHmax  of  Mr.  Thomas's  is  not 
possible.  But  the  known  facts  are  against  its 
possibihty,  certainly  its  probability.  It  is  a 
mighty  monstrous  pill  to  swallow.  It  is  too 
violent;  its  final  effect  is  to  weaken  rather 
than  strengthen  the  structure  of  the  play. 

But  swallow  the  pill  or  not  as  you  like,  scoff 
or  not  as  your  skepticism  or  credulity  dictates 
at  the  telepathy,  there  still  remains  in  "  The 
Witching  Hour  "  a  human  story,  crisply,  nat- 
urally, strongly  told;  there  still  remains  the 
medicinal  effect  of  a  mild  hypnotism  applied 
with  no  little  philosophic  and  psychologic  in- 
sight in  the  last  act,  not  the  shallow,  or  bro- 
mide, philosophy  of  the  usual  drama;  there 
still  remains  the  imaginative  skill  displayed  in 
weaving  through  the  warp  of  concrete  facts 
the  woof  of  airy  things  and  things  intangible. 
Mr.  Thomas  has  surely  added  nothing  to  sci- 
ence ;  he  may  even  have  exceeded  what  science 
and  common  sense  allow  him  of  hypnotic  and 
telepathic  phenomena.  But  this  at  least  he  has 
done,  and  well  done;  he  has  reached  down 
through  the  crust  of  the  commonplace  for  the 
dim  fires  that  smolder  beneath,  and  in  a 
drama  of  truth  and  power  he  has  set  a  coal 
from  those  fires  to  glow  unceasingly.  His 
attempt  was  audacious,  fine;  his  achievement 
deserving  of  a  fine  reward. 


"PAID    IN    FULL" 

(AsTOR,   February  25,    1908) 

"  iy  yj"  ARRY  in  haste  and  repent  in  Har- 
\/ 1  lem  "  might  very  well  serve  as  a 
X  T  ^  motto  for  Eugene  Walter's  new 
American  play,  "  Paid  in  Full."  President 
Eliot  of  Harvard  has  frequently  complained 
that  so  many  young  men  abstain  from  matri- 
mony until  they  are  thirty.  Mr.  Walter  in  the 
first  act  of  his  play  has  given  the  learned  presi- 
dent an  answer.  Better  a  dumb-waiter  and  no 
servant,  at  the  other  end  of  the  subway  where 
love  is,  than  to  dwell  where  the  bedrooms  are 
actually  on  a  separate  floor?  No  doubt,  no 
doubt!  But  mixed  up  with  poor  human  na- 
ture's brighter  part  is  pride,  and  a  certain 
craving  for  creature  comforts,  and  other  un- 
fortunate traits.  And  mixed  up  with  our  social 
and  economic  system  are  city  rents  as  lofty 
as  the  cave  dwellings  where  we  live  in  layers, 
and  high  prices  for  the  indispensable  luxuries 
of  life  as  well  as  for  the  less  important  neces- 
sities, and  small  salaries  paid  to  the  youngsters. 
And  if  the  young  men  do  not  marry  before 
they  are  thirty  and  rear  three  children  to  roam 


46     THE   AMERICAN    STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

the  vast  spaces  of  a  Harlem  flat,  to  fatten  in 
the  heahhful  Harlem  air,  there  is  something 
to  be  said  in  defense  of  them.  It  was  because 
Mr.  Walter  said  it  in  his  first  act,  and  said  it 
well,  said  it  through  the  medium  of  action  and 
characters,  not  by  spouting  a  thesis,  and  said 
it  too,  in  such  a  manner  that  the  human  story 
of  his  play  got  silently  and  swiftly  and  enter- 
tainingly under  way,  that  when  the  first  curtain 
fell  on  the  opening  night  hope  was  extraor- 
dinarily high  in  the  hearts  of  his  audience. 
But  this  hope  was  only  in  part  realized  by  sub- 
sequent acts,  and  it  is  important  to  see  exactly 
why,  for  Mr.  Walter  is  a  dramatist  far  too 
valuable  in  promise  not  to  be  handled  with  the 
utmost  severity.  He  is  a  man  who  should  go 
on,  treating  his  work  ever  more  seriously  and 
truthfully,  finding  in  his  first  success,  in  spite 
of  praise  or  royalties,  at  best  a  partial  failure. 
He  ought  to  have  the  stuff  in  him  to  be,  after 
his  first  success,  one  of  the  most  discontented 
men  in  New  York. 

Joseph  Bi'ooks  (surely  Mr.  Walter  meant  no 
harm  when  he  named  his  villain  after  one  of 
our  more  or  less  prominent  theatrical  man- 
agers!) is  a  young  man  employed  as  collector 
by  Captain  Williams,  head  of  the  Latin-Amer- 
ican Steamship  Line.  He  has  married  a  nice 
girl  named  Emma,  rushing  in  where  angels 
fear  to  wed,  and  the  opening  act  discloses  them 


"PAID   IN   FULL"  47 

in  their  Harlem  flat,  at  the  humble  task  of 
washing  the  dishes  and  clearing  up  the  dining 
room,  for  they  are  too  poor  to  afford  a  maid. 
Joe  is  a  tempery,  discontented  sort  of  person, 
who  has  been  more  and  more  embittered  every 
time  other  men  in  his  office  have  had  a  raise  in 
salary  while  he  has  not.  Captain  Williams 
was,  it  appears,  formerly  in  command  of  a 
piratical  Pacific  sealer  —  a  hard,  wolfish,  cruel 
man,  now  in  business  as  then  on  the  deck  of 
his  ship.  Even  before  he  appears  on  the  scene, 
although  the  weakness  of  Joe's  character  is 
apparent,  you  yet  feel  sympathy  for  the  lad. 
The  iron  hand  of  the  social  system  is  heavy 
upon  him,  and  like  many  another  weak  and 
egotistical  man  he  supposes  that  it  is  against 
him.  Hence  his  undigested  socialism.  James 
Smith,  an  unsuccessful  suitor  for  Emma's 
hand,  who  is  still  her  devoted  friend  and  un- 
selfishly interested  in  Joe's  welfare,  hits  the 
nail  on  the  head  when  he  says :  "  If  Joe  had 
got  his  ten-dollar  raise  to-day  he  'd  be  howling 
for  capital.  There  are  lots  of  such  Socialists." 
There  are ;  and  it  was  Mr.  Walter's  great  op- 
portunity to  continue  the  character  he  sketched 
so  admirably  in  his  opening  act.  When  Cap- 
tain Williams  comes  to  the  flat  with  Emma's 
mother  and  sister,  two  characters  needlessly 
exaggerated,  out  of  farce  in  fact,  distinct 
blots  on  the  texture  of  the  drama,  Joe  breaks 


48    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

in  upon  him  with  a  hot-headed  tirade,  a  fire- 
eating,  defiant  invective  that  is  at  once  melo- 
dramatically stirring,  an  exposition  of  char- 
acter, both  of  Joe's  and  the  Captain  s,  an 
excellent  motive  for  the  Captain's  subsequent 
scheme  of  revenge,  and,  though  in  complete 
disregard  of  Joe's  later  conduct,  a  bid  for  sym- 
pathy for  the  young  man.  When  his  wife  has 
interposed  between  him  and  the  giant  Captain's 
fist,  and  the  guests  have  departed  hastily  after 
such  a  painful  scene,  Joe  is  in  a  perfectly  natu- 
ral rebellious  mood,  ready  for  anything.  He  and 
Emma  are  invited  to  a  theater  party.  They 
cannot  go  because  she  has  no  clothes  fit  to 
wear  in  company  with  her  former  friends.  He 
resolves  on  a  theater  party  of  his  own,  and 
hang  the  expense.  Emma  runs  to  get  ready. 
He  takes  a  bill  from  the  drawer  where  he  had 
placed  his  late  afternoon  collections  for  the 
company.  Emma  returns,  beaming.  They  turn 
out  all  the  lights  in  the  flat  to  save  expense 
and  go  out.  The  curtain  descends  on  a  dark 
stage.  It  is  an  opening  act  of  extraordinary 
excellence,  with  the  farcical  mother-in-law  as 
the  one  weak  spot.  Surely  she  could  sting 
Joe's  pride  by  her  intimations  that  her  daugh- 
ter had  made  a  bad  match  in  a  less  exaggerated 
manner.  It  is  an  act  that  is  vital  with  a  truth- 
ful observation  of  existing  conditions,  that  sets 
forth  the  leading  characters  of  the  play  with 


"PAID   IN   FULL"  49 

salient  strokes,  that  naturally  and  swiftly  pre- 
pares the  spectator  for  the  coming  drama  and 
rouses  his  curiosity.  Joe  does  not  steal  to  make 
a  play.  He  steals  because  logical  circumstance 
drove  him  to  it.  The  play  is  going  to  be,  you 
are  confident,  the  outcome  of  the  characters, 
not  the  characters  of  the  play.  Pinero  himself 
need  not  have  been  ashamed  of  this  act. 

Before  the  second  act  some  months  have 
elapsed.  Joe  and  Emma  are  seen  living  in  a 
*'  semi-fashionable "  hotel,  where  the  wall- 
paper and  the  furniture  don't  match.  But 
there  is  a  telephone  instead  of  a  speaking-tube, 
and  an  upright  piano.  Emma  is  elaborately 
gowned.  Her  hands  are  no  longer  red  from 
dish-washing.  She  has  the  kitten  qualities  of 
her  sex  —  she  purrs  when  surrounded  with 
luxury.  She  thinks  that  Joe  has  had  his  sal- 
ary trebled,  with  six  months  of  back  pay  as 
well.  But  Joe's  temper  has  n't  improved.  He 
has  become  impossible.  There  is  no  vestige  of 
the  gentleman  left.  Either  his  thefts  have 
utterly  ruined  him  or  the  sympathy  he  gained 
at  first  was  gained  under  false  pretenses.  The 
Captain  and  James,  it  seems,  have  been  away 
in  South  America,  the  Captain,  of  course,  wish- 
ing to  give  Joe  enough  rope  to  hang  himself 
with.  But  they  come  back,  and  faithful  James 
tells  Joe  that  the  Captain  knows  all.  The  Cap- 
tain calls  and  plays  with  Joe  before  his  un- 


50     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

suspecting  wife  with  deliberate,  sly,  wolfish 
cruelty.  There  is  dramatic  stuff  in  this  scene; 
it  bites.  Joe  is  shadowed  by  detectives.  He 
cannot  escape.  The  Captain  goes  out,  telling 
him  to  be  at  the  office  at  eight  the  next  morn- 
ing. And  then  Joe  confesses  everything  to  his 
wife.  He  exposes  layer  after  layer  of  abom- 
inable caddishness.  He  says  he  stole  for  her 
sake,  which  is  more  than  half  true,  or  would 
have  been  true  did  he  not  say  it  in  such  a 
brutal,  unloving  way.  At  length,  in  his  cow- 
ardly fear  of  jail,  he  is  driven  to  suggest  that 
she  go  at  once  to  Captain  Williams's  fiat  and 
intercede  for  him.  ''  The  Captain  likes  you  — 
he  likes  pretty  women,"  Joe  says.  "  And  all 
women  know  how  far  they  can  go."  And  he 
adds  that  she  ought  to  do  it  since  it  was  she 
who  drove  him  into  crime.  Well,  with  that 
speech  every  last  spark  of  sympathy  for  Joe, 
every  last  mite  of  interest  in  him  as  a  type  to 
be  studied  for  light  on  social  conditions,  van- 
ishes. On  the  opening  night  there  was  a 
smothered  gasp  almost  of  horror  in  the  audi- 
ence. For  a  moment  it  seemed  as  if  the  entire 
structure  of  the  play  was  tottering,  so  violently 
were  the  sensibilities  wrenched  and  the  in- 
terest shifted.  So  Joe  was  nothing  but  a  skunk 
after  all !  Nay,  worse,  he  was  nothing  but  a 
conventional  stage  villain  used  to  bring  about 
a  third-act  situation!     So  a  play  that  started 


"PAID   IN   FULL"  51 

in  hopefully  as  a  social  study  was  to  be  in  the 
end  nothing  but  the  fulmination  of  a  young 
dramatist  trying  to  write  a  "  strong  scene  " ! 
It  was  not  pity  for  Emma,  but  sorrow  for  an- 
other play  gone  wrong,  that  saddened  the  hearts 
of  some  in  the  audience.  Mr.  Walter  had  his 
chance  —  and  he  missed  it. 

But  in  missing  it  he  found  something  else 
of  positive  value,  and  in  his  third  act,  by  the 
sheer  dramatic  life  of  his  situation,  he  saved 
his  play  from  the  commonplace,  perhaps  from 
what  would  have  been  popular  failure,  even  if 
he  did  have  to  tear  a  leaf  out  of  Maeterlinck's 
"  Mona  Vanna  "  to  do  it.  For  Emma  goes  to 
Captain  Williams's  flat,  a  curious  place  with 
a  wheel  over  the  door,  a  capstan  for  a  table, 
and  port  and  starboard  lights  agleam,  like  a 
Fourth  Avenue  drug  store,  and  there  the  old 
sea  wolf  fools  her  and  the  audience  alike  by 
disclosing  an  elementary  streak  of  iron  gener- 
osity in  his  nature,  a  coarse  kind  of  chivalry, 
that  is  perhaps  none  the  less  pleasant  to  con- 
template because  it  results  more  than  half  from 
a  desire  for  a  picturesque  and  surprising  form 
of  revenge.  "  They  say  I  'm  a  brute,  do  they? 
Well,  I'll  show  'em  that  — I  ain't!"  was  the 
formula  of  the  Captain's  psychology.  After 
all,  as  Frank  Sheridan  played  him,  there  is 
something  deliciously  probable  about  this  psy- 
chology.   It  may  well  be  that  the  Captain  is  the 


62    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

most  intricately  human  character  in  the  play. 
And  one  the  more  regrets  that  Mr.  Walter  had 
so  completely  to  sacrifice  Joe  in  order  to  make 
this  evident.  There  is  a  cruel  waste  of  good 
material  in  such  construction.  Of  course  after 
the  earlier  revelation  there  was  but  one  end 
possible  when  Emma  returned  to  the  ''  semi- 
fashionable  "  hotel.  She  left  Joe  forever  —  and 
for  the  faithful  James.  Everything  comes  to 
him  who  waits. 

The  failure  of  the  play,  then,  is  not  a  failure 
to  arouse  interest  in  dramatic  situations,  nor  a 
failure  to  attract  public  patronage.  It  is  a  fail- 
ure at  exactly  the  point  where  so  many  well- 
meaning  and  seriously  written  plays  fail  —  a 
failure  to  bend  the  stubborn  material  of  the 
stage  always  and  consistently  to  the  purposes 
of  significant  truth,  allowing  instead  the  mate- 
rial to  warp  the  significant  truth.  It  may  be 
true  that  such  skunks  as  Joe  exist  and  manage 
to  marry  chaste  and  lovely  Emmas  in  spite  of 
the  counter  proposals  of  faithful  and  adoring 
Jameses.  But  it  is  not  significant,  it  is  not  rep- 
resentative. No  light  is  shed  on  the  dark  places 
of  any  considerable  number  of  Harlem  flats; 
there  is  no  lesson  to  be  learned,  no  real  com- 
ment made  on  present  social  conditions.  ''  Paid 
in  Full  "  is  not,  after  all,  a  ''  criticism  of  life," 
but  simply  another  play.  It  is  an  interesting,  a 
promising  play.    But  it  is  not  what  it  should  be, 


"PAID   IN   FULL"  53 

what  it  might  have  been.  Judged  by  the  exact- 
ing standards,  not  of  Broadway  but  the  leading 
examples  of  the  modern  social  drama,  it  is  a 
failure. 

In  a  general  way  of  course  all  these  things 
discussed  are  comprised  by  the  term  "  dramatic 
style."  Dramatic  style  lies  quite  as  much  in  the 
structure,  in  the  unification  of  atmosphere  and 
mood,  in  the  development  of  character,  as  in  the 
mere  dialogue.  The  farcical  mother-in-law  in 
"  Paid  in  Full "  is,  for  example,  an  error  of 
style,  a  kind  of  dramatic  split  infinitive!  But 
in  a  narrower  sense  the  term  may  be  used 
to  describe  the  language  in  which  a  play  is 
couched  and  which  when  nicely  handled  may 
be  potent  for  efifect  or  charm  even  in  the  most 
realistic  of  plays.  It  is  in  this  sense  at  least 
that  Mr.  Walter  may  be  said  to  be  lacking  in 
style.  He  has  much  to  learn  and  some  things 
to  unlearn.  Contrast  for  a  moment  the  nerv- 
ous, beautiful  prose  of  "  The  Great  Divide  " 
with  the  language  of  Mr.  Walter's  play.  It  can 
hardly  be  urged  that  Ruth  and  Steve  do  not 
speak  human  language,  even  if  on  occasion  they 
do  strike  out  similes  worthy  of  Shelley.  Or 
contrast  his  dialogue  with  that  in  "  The  Witch- 
ing Hour,"  the  work  of  a  man  who  is  n't,  as 
Mr.  Moody  is,  a  student  and  teacher  of  rhetoric, 
and  a  poet  as  well.  Mr.  Thomas's  characters, 
though  they  speak  in  character,  though  the 


64    THE   AIVIERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

Judge  uses  a  different  vocabulary  from  the 
gambler,  do  not  for  that  reason  necessarily 
speak  harshly,  without  distinction.  It  is  a  nice 
problem,  no  doubt,  that  faces  any  writer  of 
dialogue  to  draw  the  line  exactly  right  between 
a  realistic  reproduction  of  conversational  slop- 
piness  and  a  scrupulous  rhetoric.  Yet  he  must 
always  remember  that  a  part  of  the  pleasure 
to  be  derived  from  a  work  of  art  is  an  aesthetic 
pleasure,  and  the  mere  reproduction  of  conver- 
sational sloppiness  will  in  the  end  bring  weari- 
ness and  a  sense  of  vulgar  commonplaceness. 
Mr.  Walter  has  displayed  in  "  Paid  in  Full " 
no  care  whatever  for  beauty  or  distinction  of 
speech.  His  language  is  bald  and  common- 
place. And  his  play  suffers  thereby,  is  not 
without  a  taint  of  cheapness. 

But  in  the  speeches  assigned  to  the  faithful 
James  he  has  erred  still  further.  In  his  desire 
to  avoid  bookishness,  to  suggest  the  breezy, 
slangy  freshness  of  this  Colorado  Cayley 
Drummle,  this  sentimentally  lovable  fellow,  at 
once  so  simple  and  so  sharp,  James  talks  like  a 
book  all  the  time  —  a  book  of  slang.  James 
has  a  peculiar,  a  picturesque  vocabulary.  He 
talks  in  metaphors,  the  racy  metaphors  of  the 
street  or  the  West.  His  vocabulary  is  a  part  of 
his  charm  and  of  his  character.  But  he  is  a 
man  of  deep  and  sincere  feeling,  of  tender  sen- 
sibilities and  gentle  instincts.    When,  therefore, 


"PAID   IN   FULL'*  55 

he  describes  to  the  woman  he  loves  the  shame  of 
his  mother  who  bore  him  nameless  into  the 
world  and  died  of  her  grief,  the  slang  would  in 
reality  have  fallen  from  him  and  he  would  have 
spoken  in  simple,  touching  English.  There 
would  have  been  no  laughs  from  the  audience 
during  his  narrative  had  he  so  spoken.  Mr. 
Walter,  however,  has  increased  rather  than 
diminished  the  quantity  of  his  slang  during  this 
scene,  has  even  more  highly  colored  his  meta- 
phors. So  the  speech  is  false  to  character,  it 
strikes  harshly  and  painfully  on  the  ear.  And 
it  smells  of  the  lamp  quite  as  much  as  any 
bombastic  rhetoric  could. 

After  all,  style  in  the  drama,  as  anywhere  else, 
is  the  outer  manifestation  of  an  inner  sense  of 
fitness.  If  a  character  is  perfectly  realized,  the 
author  cannot  but  make  him  speak  fitting  words 
and  do  fitting  things.  If  the  dominant  mood  or 
purpose  of  a  play  is  thoroughly  and  firmly  laid 
hold  of,  the  author  cannot  but  reject  all  persons 
and  episodes  that  are  not  in  harmony,  that 
shatter  his  mood  or  distract  him  from  his  pur- 
pose. Perfectly  to  realize  all  characters,  firmly 
and  thoroughly  to  lay  hold  of  a  dominant  mood 
and  purpose,  is  a  task  that  only  the  exceptional 
authors  of  this  earth  can  accomplish,  least  of  all 
dramatic  authors,  for  whom  the  material  is  so 
stubborn,  the  distracting  temptations  so  many 
and  great.    If  Mr.  Walter  is  wise,  he  will  learn 


56    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

many  lessons  from  ''  Paid  in  Full "  and  keep 
an  even  more  exacting  watch  on  himself.  It 
should  be  his  ambition  to  be  one  of  these  ex- 
ceptional authors. 

In  the  acting,  "Paid  in  Full  "  has  been  a  shin- 
ing example  of  the  merely  commercial  value  of 
good  stage  management.  Without  a  star  in 
the  cast,  each  part  told  at  its  true  worth,  and  all 
the  players  worked  together  for  the  play.  Yet 
Tully  Marshall  as  Joseph  Brooks  stood  out  in 
the  cast  by  virtue  of  his  performance.  Joe  is 
a  thankless  role  from  the  actor's  point  of  view, 
because  he  becomes  utterly  a  cad  and  loses  all 
sympathy  of  the  audience.  Mr.  Marshall, 
however,  was  not  concerned ;  he  set  to  work  to 
discover  exactly  what  external  forces  brought 
out  the  latent  caddishness  and  abominable 
qualities  in  this  weak-willed  youth  and  then 
showed  their  workings  with  vivid  naturalness. 
Mr.  Marshall  here  was  superior  to  his  author. 
Mr.  Walter,  you  feel,  made  Brooks  abominable 
largely  because  that  was  the  easiest  way  to 
bring  about  his  third-act  situation.  Mr.  Mar- 
shall, taking  Brooks  rather  as  a  specific  human 
being  than  a  pawn  in  the  plot,  extracted  every 
bit  of  logical  cause  from  circumstance  and  kept 
Brooks  human  in  spite  of  his  author.  He  never 
seemed  to  play  for  the  story  at  all;  always  he 
played  to  explain,  to  make  real,  the  character  of 
Brooks.     He  was  not  playing  a  part;   he  was 


"PAID   IN   FULL"  57 

tracking  down  life.  It  was  a  fine  piece  of  act- 
ing, disclosing  just  the  kind  of  intelligence  and 
skill  to  make  vital  and  moving  the  modern 
drama  of  contemporary  life,  the  drama  that  has 
a  purpose  above  the  mere  trickle  of  a  story, 
the  rehashing  of  conventional  situations  —  that 
is  searching  for  truth. 


PARNASSUS  VS.   THE   PUBLIC 

(Lyric,  October  21,  1907) 

"  T  DO  not  see,"  cries  Mr.  Arthur  Symons, 
I  **  why  people  should  ever  break  silence 
■^  upon  the  stage  except  to  speak  poetry." 
Perhaps  his  answer  was  to  be  found  at  the 
Lyric  Theater,  where  the  players  in  Mr.  Mac- 
Kaye's  "  Sappho  and  Phaon  "  broke  the  silence 
to  no  effect  and  to  small  audiences,  for  one  week 
only.  Mr.  Symons  admits,  he  says,  of  nothing 
on  the  stage  between  pantomime  and  the  poetic 
drama ;  all  the  rest  is  mere  photograph,  useless, 
barren.  While  there  are  few  people  who  will 
go  with  him  to  this  extent  of  fanatic  apprecia- 
tion, there  are  plenty  who  will  share  with  him 
a  belief  in  the  vast  superiority  of  the  poetic 
drama,  if  not  of  the  pantomime,  over  the  prose 
record  of  life  on  the  stage;  who  will  hail  any 
attempt  to  write  a  drama  in  verse  at  any  time 
as  supremely  to  be  encouraged.  Is  it  supremely 
to  be  encouraged  ?  Is  the  poetic  drama  —  that 
is,  the  drama  in  verse  —  essentially,  inevitably, 
superior  ?  In  the  new  Twentieth  Century  is  the 
drama  in  verse  necessarily  more  poetic  in  its 
final  effect  than  the  naturalistic  play  in  prose 


PARNASSUS   VS.   THE   PUBLIC  59 

wrought  by  a  man  of  insight  and  imagination? 
To  be  specific,  could  not  Percy  MacKaye  better 
serve  himself  and  the  American  Stage  by  writ- 
ing dramas  of  to-day,  in  the  idiom  of  to-day,  by 
deserting  Pegasus  for  a  motor  car  ? 

This  tight  old  world  is  in  very  little  danger 
from  revolutionists,  iconoclasts,  new  ideas  in 
any  form.  We  are  compact  of  an  inherited 
stock  of  beliefs  and  ideas,  and  we  adopt  as  little 
that  is  new  as  possible;  we  hate  a  change,  a 
readjustment.  We  get  along  with  the  old  just 
as  long  as  we  can,  and  when  a  change  is  in- 
evitable we  welcome  just  as  little  of  the  new  as 
our  consciences  or  our  comfort  will  allow.  In  no 
department  of  our  ideas  is  this  more  true  than 
in  our  ideas  about  the  drama.  Old  traditions 
flourish  just  because  they  are  traditions;  old 
conventions,  moldy  with  time,  still  prevail  and 
are  accepted  by  audiences  long  after  every  one 
knows  they  are  false  and  hollow.  The  stage 
villain,  the  stage  servant,  the  stage  hero,  what 
are  they  but  conventions  we  lack  the  initiative 
to  give  up?  And  one  of  the  most  deep-rooted 
of  our  traditional  beliefs  about  the  theater  is 
the  belief  that  the  blank-verse  drama  is  in- 
evitably the  noblest  form,  by  divine  right  king. 
And  so  each  time  that  a  new  drama  in  blank 
verse  is  written  we  heave  a  pious  ejaculation  of 
approval,  we  fill  up  our  critical  fountain  pens 
to  praise,  if  possible,  or  if  we  are  not  critics 


60     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

but  just  "  patrons  of  the  theater,"  we  hasten 
to  buy  seats.  And  then  we  all  go  to  the 
theater  and  are  solemnly  bored,  and  between 
acts  quote  to  each  other  the  familiar  bromide: 
"  The  trouble  is  there  are  no  actors  any  longer 
who  know  how  to  read  blank  verse !  "  It  does 
not  occur  to  us  to  admit  —  nor  would  we  admit 
it  if  it  did  —  that  perhaps  the  poetic  drama  fails 
to  interest  us  for  quite  another  reason,  because 
it  is  no  longer  a  living  form,  because  whether 
we  like  and  approve  it  or  not,  the  old  order  does 
change.  And  sooner  or  later  it  will  compel  our 
reluctant  admission. 

Now,  nobody  is  going  to  deny  that  the  dear 
bromide  about  actors  and  blank  verse  is  true, 
save  in  the  honorable  case  of  Julia  Marlowe. 
Fred  Eric  alone  of  the  entire  "  Sappho  and 
Phaon  "  company  (and  he  was  trained  by  Miss 
Marlowe)  could  get  his  lines  across  the  foot- 
lights as  verse,  even  could  speak  them  in  excited 
moments  so  that  the  words  were  intelligible 
above  the  sound  of  the  property  surf,  which  so 
perilously  suggested  the  arrival  of  the  winter 
coal  supply.  The  star  herself,  Mme.  Bertha 
Kalisch,  was  the  worst  offender.  But  in  the 
name  of  common  sense,  why  can't  our  actors 
read  blank  verse?  Who  is  to  blame?  We  are, 
the  spirit  of  the  age  is,  the  evolution  of  the 
drama  is ;  and  could  anything  be  more  illogical, 
if  not  actually  hypocritical,  than  our  melan- 


PARNASSUS   VS.    THE   PUBLIC  61 

choly  lamentations  over  a  corpse  of  something 
which  we  ourselves  have  killed  actually  with- 
out regret  in  the  cause  of  entertainment?  If 
our  actors  cannot  speak  blank  verse,  it  is  be- 
cause they  have  not  been  trained  by  practice 
to  speak  it,  and  that  is  because  the  blank  verse 
drama  has  not  been  played;  and  if  the  blank 
verse  drama  has  not  been  played,  that  is  be- 
cause the  public  does  not  want  it.  What  we 
consciously  approve  from  motives  of  supposed 
propriety  we  unconsciously  disapprove  from  in- 
stinct. Of  course,  our  instincts  carry  the  day; 
they  always  do.  And  we  present  the  melan- 
choly spectacle,  so  hateful  to  Ibsen,  of  men  and 
women  who  dare  not  come  right  out  into  the 
open  for  their  instincts.  We  are  in  much  the 
same  position  as  the  good  deacon  whom  Pro- 
fessor Pratt  describes  in  his  book  on  "  The 
Psychology  of  Religious  Belief."  "  The  time 
is  coming,"  said  the  deacon,  sadly,  "  when  I 
shall  have  to  believe  what  I  believe ! " 

Yet  it  is  not  such  a  terrible  thing  to  believe 
what  you  believe.  It  is  like  taking  a  cold  plunge 
in  the  morning.  The  preliminary  fear  is  awful, 
the  after  effect  a  glowing  reaction.  So  the  man 
who  finally  admits  honestly  to  himself  that 
the  modern  naturalistic  drama  interests  him 
tremendously  and  the  blank  verse  drama  seems 
to  him  archaic,  outworn,  false,  a  thing  now  for 
the  closet,  not  the  stage,  clears  himself  "  of  past 


62     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

regrets  and  future  fears  "  and  is  filled  with  a 
certain  bounding  exhilaration  and  faith  in  the 
present.  He  is  like  the  rich  man  who  lost  all 
his  money  in  the  Civil  War  and  rolled  on  the 
ground  in  sheer  delight  of  feeling  free  again. 
What  your  theater-goer  has  lost  is  the  load  of 
tradition,  the  burden  of  the  past,  an  inherited 
pessimism;  what  he  has  gained  is  freedom  to 
trust  the  present  and  hope  for  the  future.  And 
his  gain  is  so  great  that  it  is  quite  worth  the 
chance  even  of  being  wrong.  Crede  experto. 
But  there  are  arguments  in  plenty  to  buttress 
his  position,  aside  from  this  greatest  one,  the 
freedom  to  trust  in  the  present  tendencies  of 
the  stage,  the  greatest  because  faith  in  one's 
own  generation  is  always  the  finest  incentive 
to  good  and  significant  work.  The  drift  of  art 
has  always  been  toward  specialization.  Mod- 
ern criticism  has  busied  itself  with  searching 
out  and  analyzing  the  peculiar  qualities  of  the 
poem,  the  novel,  the  picture,  the  statue,  the  play. 
If  a  novel  could  just  as  well  be  a  play  or  an  epic 
a  novel,  modern  criticism  tells  us  that  novel  or 
that  epic  is  a  bad  piece  of  art.  But  the  drama 
has  long  been  a  jumble  of  the  arts,  only  feel- 
ing its  way  up  gradually  and  realizing  imper- 
fectly a  sure  and  distinct  ideal  of  its  own.  As 
the  "  apron  "  of  Shakespeare's  stage  gradually 
shrank  further  and  further  back  till  now  it 
has    disappeared,    the   players   being   entirely 


PARNASSUS   VS.   THE  PUBLIC  63 

framed  behind  the  proscenium  arch,  the  "  room 
with  the  fourth  wall  removed "  being  fully 
realized,  this  ideal  has  emerged  more  and  more 
clearly.  The  growth  of  scenery  has  done  away 
with  the  need  of  language  to  describe  the  scene. 
Electric  lights  and  the  thousand  mechanical 
aids  to  illusion  have  done  away  with  the  demand 
for  pictorial  description  in  the  play.  A  slow 
growth  of  technique  has  eliminated  the  solil- 
oquy, boiled  down  and  concentrated  the  action, 
made  the  scene  within  the  proscenium  frame  so 
much  more  natural,  so  much  more  like  life,  that 
to  our  modern  ears  nothing  but  lifelike  speech 
will  be  tolerated  from  the  players,  and  uncon- 
sciously we  have  come  to  demand  that  it  shall 
still  further  fulfill  the  demands  of  naturalism 
and  be  speech  couched  in  prose.  If  the  old-time 
spouting  actor  is  dead,  the  old-time  blank  verse 
spouted  is  archaic.  The  drama  has,  in  short, 
become  a  highly  specialized  art  form,  its  ideal 
being  to  recreate  reality  as  surely,  as  vividly,  as 
directly  as  possible.  To  that  end  it  divorces 
poetic  speech  as  a  convention  false  to  life,  as 
it  has  divorced  the  false  exaggerations  of  the 
actors. 

Nor  is  this  at  all  to  say  that  the  modern  drama 
is  only  a  photograph,  or  even  that  it  cannot  be 
in  a  larger  sense  poetic.  One  of  the  great 
achievements  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  was 
to  strike  the  fetters  from  prose.    Wordsworth 


64     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

dismissed  the  old  Eighteenth  Century  distinc- 
tion between  prose  and  verse  by  declaring  the 
difference  to  rest  upon  the  almost  technical 
basis  of  the  absence  or  presence  of  metrical 
beauty.  That  distinction  glorifies  the  prose 
drama.  Newman  and  Ruskin  and  Arnold  and 
Pater  have  taught  us  that  prose  may  carry  its 
burden  of  loveliness  no  less  than  verse,  may 
have  its  own  cadences  and  melody.  It  was 
Pater  who  said  that  music  is  the  ideal  art  be- 
cause it  is  impossible  in  music  to  distinguish  the 
form  from  the  substance  or  matter,  the  subject 
from  the  expression.  Now,  the  poetic  drama  is 
a  divorce  of  the  form  and  the  subject  matter 
in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  so  sel- 
dom is  the  subject  matter  sufficiently  unworldly, 
glorified,  saturated  with  mystic  or  musical  feel- 
ing as  to  comport  naturally  with  verse  in  the 
mouths  of  the  characters.  The  content,  the 
subject  matter  of  the  drama  to-day,  is  not  a 
thing  apart  from  life;  it  is  a  section  of  life 
where  prose  is  spoken,  and  a  perfect  welding 
of  form  and  substance  demands  that  prose  be 
the  form.  That  this  welding  can  be  accom- 
plished without  loss  of  beauty  in  the  mere 
speech  "  The  Great  Divide  "  sufficiently  attests, 
a  play  in  which  the  spoken  words  at  once  fulfill 
the  ideal  of  the  modern  naturalistic  stage  and 
the  ideal  of  imaginative  charm  and  verbal 
cadence.     And  that  the  modern  prose  drama 


PARNASSUS   VS.    THE   PUBLIC  65 

need  not  be  and  is  not  a  mere  photograph  the 
works  of  Ibsen  and  every  playwright  who  has 
wrought  from  the  idea,  who  has  had  a  "  criti- 
cism of  Hfe  "  to  make,  abundantly  prove.  Life 
may  still  be  treated  poetically,  life  may  still  be 
glorified  on  the  stage.  Only  now  it  must  be 
glorified  not  by  being  made  something  differ- 
ent from  life,  something  apart  and  unreal,  but 
something  first  of  all  like  life,  a  piece  of  it,  set 
out  truthfully  and  considered  for  what  may  be 
there  over  and  above  the  more  obvious  aspects. 
It  is  not  the  poetry  in  the  blank  verse  drama 
which  we  find,  in  our  hearts,  uninteresting; 
it  is  the  unreality.  We  are  no  more  literal- 
minded  than  our  fathers  were.  But  we  have 
been  taught  by  the  evolution  of  the  stage,  by 
the  specialization  of  the  drama,  the  divorce  be- 
tween the  art  of  playwriting  and  the  art  of 
verse  making,  to  look  for  one  quality  of  emotion 
from  the  one  art,  and  another  quality  from  the 
other.  We  are  but  following  the  inevitable 
march  of  things  and  events.  Why  then  should 
we  be  ashamed? 

Let  us  not  be  ashamed !  Let  us  go  right  on 
enjoying  "  A  Grand  Army  Man  "  more  than 
"  Sappho  and  Phaon  "  and  not  tell  ourselves  we 
should  n't.  Let  us  say  right  out  that  Percy 
MacKaye,  a  young  American  of  high  ideals, 
steadfast  adherence  to  his  best  beliefs,  courage, 
intelligence,  fine  taste  and  imaginative  quality, 

s 


66     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

could  far  better  serve  our  stage  and  his  own 
ideals  by  giving  us  dramas  of  our  own  day  in 
our  modern  idiom.  Let  us  not  mind  the  scho- 
lastic people,  "praisers  of  what  is  old  and  accus- 
tomed at  the  expense  of  what  is  new;  who 
would  never  have  discovered  for  themselves  the 
charm  of  any  work,  whether  new  or  old,  who 
value  what  is  old  in  art  or  literature  .  .  .  for 
the  conventional  authority  that  has  gathered 
about  it."  Let  us  not  think  that  all  verse  is 
poetry  —  much  of  Mr.  MacKaye's  is  n't  —  or 
all  prose  unpoetic.  Let  us  not  fancy  that  what 
we  don't  like  is  good  for  us  and  what  we  do 
like  is  therefore  bad! 

It  would  be  a  pretty  problem  for  some  student 
of  aesthetics  to  figure  out  what  share  the  growth 
of  the  music  drama  in  the  past  seventy-five  or 
one  hundred  years  has  had  upon  the  decline  of 
the  drama  in  verse.  The  opera,  especially  in 
New  York,  is  enormously  patronized.  And  the 
tragic  opera  is  especially  popular,  just  as  the 
poetic  tragedy  used  to  lord  it  in  interest  over 
the  lighter  forms  of  verse  plays.  Once  upon  a 
time  music  was  the  spokesman  of  the  lighter 
moods,  and  the  stage  looked  after  the  grand 
passions.  Now  there  is  hardly  a  grand  passion 
once  set  down  in  heroic  verse  and  mouthed  by 
our  Garricks  and  Keans  and  Forrests  that  is 
not  sung  in  opera  over  the  sobbing,  wailing, 
crashing  harmonies  of  strings  and  wood  wind 


PARNASSUS   VS.  THE   PUBLIC  67 

and  ringing  brass.  How  tame  seemed  Mr. 
MacKaye's  love  scene  between  Sappho  and 
Phaon  to  any  one  whose  ears  carried  the  mem- 
ory of  the  duet  from  the  second  act  of  "  Tristan 
and  Isolde" !  And  when  his  fisher  folk  entered, 
singing  their  hymn  to  Poseidon,  —  a  hymn,  by 
the  way,  of  great  efifectiveness  and  charm,  as 
was  all  Professor  Stanley's  music  for  the  play, 
—  did  it  not  seem  as  if  the  play  had  at  last 
reached  its  true  medium,  becoming  opera?  In 
the  poetic  drama  at  its  best  there  resides  a 
haunting  unreality,  a  moonlit  potency  over  the 
primal  emotions,  the  vague  places  of  the  heart, 
closely  akin  to  the  eloquence  of  music.  The 
music  of  the  verse  indeed  is  but  a  kind  of  aria. 
This  is  very  far  from  the  semi-intellectual  ap- 
peal of  the  drama  as  we  know  it  to-day;  but 
it  is  correspondingly  close  to  modern  opera, 
even  to  opera  since  Gliick.  Perhaps  what 
"  Sappho  and  Phaon "  tries  to  do  Wagner 
achieves.  Perhaps  the  release  of  the  human 
spirit  through  the  biological  emotions  (there 
is  really  no  other  adjective)  once  accomplished 
by  the  poetic  drama  is  now  accomplished  by 
opera.  It  is  a  pretty  question,  and  one  by  no 
means  lightly  to  be  dismissed. 

But  for  some  time  now  the  reader  has  been 
either  scornfully  tolerant  or  wriggling  with  in- 
dignation. Perhaps  at  last  he  explodes  the 
word  "  Shakespeare  "  like  a  bombshell.    Really 


68     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

that  is  not  fair,  because  it  has  been  lo,  these 
many  generations  since  Shakespeare  made  his 
appeal  solely  as  a  dramatist.  When  revivals 
of  his  work  warm  the  Winter  of  our  discontent, 
no  small  portion  of  the  audiences  is  drawn  from 
a  class  which  does  not  as  a  rule  frequent  the 
playhouse,  and,  for  the  rest  of  us  his  charac- 
ters are  so  familiar  and  fraught  with  past  as- 
sociations and  even  with  childhood  dreams, 
his  dramas  so  much  a  part  of  our  education  and 
our  English  inheritance,  that  he  is  no  fair  test. 
Shakespeare  as  exception  proves  more  than  one 
rule.  His  genius  triumphs  over  his  gross  ab- 
surdities of  plot;  his  poetry  lifts  play  and 
players  and  beholder  into  its  own  exalted  and 
lonely  regions,  where  no  one  but  he  has  trod. 
Rather  try  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  on  Broad- 
way, and  see  how  long  one  of  their  plays  would 
run,  how  much  interest  it  would  awake,  to 
judge  the  Elizabethan  poetic  drama  on  its 
fitness  as  a  class,  a  genre,  for  the  modern  stage. 
Has  the  reader  any  doubts  of  the  result  ?  What 
Eighteenth  Century  verse  drama  would  he 
care  to  revive?  Addison's  "  Cato  "  ?  Or  per- 
chance "  Douglas,"  which  at  its  first  perform- 
ance inspired  the  excited  Scotchman  to  cry  out, 
"Where's  your  Willie  Shakespeare  noo?" 
We  know  the  dramas  of  the  early  Nineteenth 
Century  poets,  great  as  poetry,  were  bad  as 
stage  pieces,  and  we  have  recently  seen  at  the 


PARNASSUS   VS.   THE   PUBLIC  69 

very  theater  where  '*  Sappho  and  Phaon  "  was 
exhibited  the  melancholy  failure  of  "  Virgin- 
ius,"  which,  atrocious  "  poetry  "  as  it  is,  was 
once  effective  in  the  acting.  Not  long  ago  we 
saw  the  failure  of  Stephen  Phillip's  modern 
"  Ulysses,"  and  a  year  later  the  cool  reception 
of  his  "  Paolo  and  Francesca,"  which  had 
been  hailed,  between  covers,  as  works  of  a 
high  order  of  merit.  And  now  "  Sappho  and 
Phaon "  is  the  latest  sacrifice  on  the  cruel 
altar  of  Tradition,  the  latest  costly  offering 
of  money  and  thought  and  energy.  Does 
it  not  seem  futile?  Does  it  not  seem  foolish? 
Does  it  not  seem  too  wasteful  to  be 
encouraged  ? 

There  is  a  young  poet  in  New  York  who  says 
some  day  he  is  going  to  write  a  play  in  mixed 
prose  and  verse  about  modern  life.  His  scenes 
will  be  laid  right  here  and  now  in  America ;  his 
characters  will  wear  the  conventional  garb  of 
the  age.  The  exposition  will  be  in  prose,  but 
when  the  emotions  mount,  when  the  play 
swings  into  its  climaxes,  he  will  show,  declares 
this  poet,  that  verse  is  still  your  only  form  of 
speech,  that  poetry  has  not  perished  from  the 
world.  Noble  ambition!  And  may  he  find  a 
manager  to  produce  his  play  and  actors  who 
can  speak  his  lines!  If  he  is  a  poet  by  divine 
right,  no  doubt  he  can  shatter  all  theories, 
sweep  everything  before  him.     If  he,  unlike 


70     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

Mr.  MacKaye,  can  achieve  the  music  and  sim- 
pHcity  and  heart-searching  eloquence  of  such 
poetry  as  these  Hues  of  Milton  telling  of  the  loss 
of  Proserpine  — 

"...  which  cost  Ceres  all  that  pain 
To  seek  her  through  the  world"  — 

and  if  he  can  also  write  a  play  which  other- 
wise fulfills  the  modern  requirements  of  tech- 
nical skill  and  faithful  portrayal  of  life  and 
character,  well,  the  crown  and  sceptre  are  his! 
But  while  we  are  waiting  for  him  to  write  this 
play,  let  us  not  worry  too  much  over  our  low  es- 
tate. Let  us  not  be  too  sure  that  because  the 
blank  verse  drama  does  not  flourish,  poetry  has 
therefore  perished  from  the  earth.  Let  us  re- 
mind ourselves  now  and  then  that  if  Pinero 
could  n't  write  "  An  Ode  to  a  Nightingale," 
neither  could  Keats  have  written  "  Iris."  Let 
us  try  to  see  in  the  loss  of  verse  from  the  drama 
a  compensating  vividness  of  reality,  as  though 
the  stage  had  crept  closer  to  life  and  could  now 
help  us  where  before  it  only  comforted  with  de- 
lusions. And,  above  all,  let  us  try  to  see  that 
poetry  does  not  reside  alone  in  the  five-foot 
iambic  line  or  in  any  metrical  combination  of 
words;  that  common  things  ennobled,  that 
hearts  touched  with  pity  or  warmed  by  love, 
that  sacrifice  and  birth  and  death  may  all  be- 
come poetry  if  a  ray  of  truth  shine  suddenly 


PARNASSUS   VS.   THE   PUBLIC  71 

upon  them  so  that  they  stand  out  Hke  images 
for  us  to  see  and  wonder  at. 

When  Hilda  exclaims,  *'  My  Kingdom,  Mas- 
ter Builder,  my  Kingdom  on  the  table ! "  the 
words  carry  a  world  of  suggestion  that  make 
them  more  truly  poetry  than  anything,  perhaps, 
in  "  Sappho  and  Phaon."  And  the  humble  sit- 
ting room  of  Wes'  Bigelow's  house,  sleeping  in 
the  warm  sunlight  to  the  drowsy  tick  of  the 
clock,  has  the  quality  of  Whittier's  domestic 
verse  about  it  no  less  sure  and  potent  than 
"  Snow  Bound  "  itself.  No  playwright  need  be 
less  a  poet  for  working  in  the  medium  effective 
with  a  modern  audience  —  indeed,  whether  he 
approves  or  not,  practically  demanded  by  the 
modern  audience.  And,  by  yielding  to  his 
times,  he  can  surely  accomplish  far  more  prac- 
tical good.  Trying  to  dam  the  stream  of  tend- 
ency with  a  drama  in  blank  verse  may  be  he- 
roic, but  it  is  not  economical.  The  stream 
flows  on. 


RHYME  AND   UNREASON 

(Empire,  January  15,  1908) 

WITH  all  due  respect  and  admiration 
for  Miss  Maude  Adams,  with  all 
due  respect  and  admiration  for  the 
drama  "made  in  France"  (a  trade-mark  sup- 
posed to  carry  all  the  weight  of  the  English 
"  sterling"),  with  all  due  —  well,  with  all  due 
consideration  of  the  applause  bestowed  upon 
play  and  players,  it  is  impossible  to  take  "  The 
Jesters  "  very  seriously.  Putting  aside  for  a 
moment  the  question  of  metrical  form,  the  con- 
tent and  spirit  of  this  play  are  spurious,  and 
greatly  to  admire  it,  even  greatly  to  derive 
pleasure  from  it,  is  to  confuse  the  real  with 
what  is  only  imitation;  to  confuse,  if  not  actu- 
ally to  debase,  one's  standards  of  taste  and 
judgment;  certainly  to  entangle  one's  merely 
friendly  interest  in  the  personality  of  Miss 
Adams  with  one's  aesthetic  appreciation  of  a 
work  of  art.  Such  a  confusion  of  judgments  is 
not,  unfortunately,  rare  or  difficult  to  fall  into, 
and  therein  lies  one  of  the  greatest  dangers  of 
the  "  star  "  system.  The  apparently  consider- 
able public  approval  of  "  The  Jesters  "  is  an 
excellent  case  in  point. 


RHYME   AND   UNREASON  73 

For  the  metrical  form  of  the  English  ver- 
sion ought  alone  to  condemn  it.  The  rhymed 
Alexandrines  of  the  French  drama  in  verse 
have  been  accepted  in  France  as  the  ideal  poetic 
form  for  so  many  generations  that  they  have 
acquired  a  dignity  of  tradition  no  less  power- 
ful than  the  English  tradition  of  blank  verse, 
the  five-foot  iambic  line,  unrhymed.  There  is  a 
very  simple  reason  for  this  —  the  lack  of  ac- 
cent in  the  French  language.  To  the  English 
or  the  German  ear,  in  fact,  the  French  tongue 
seems  often  unfitted  for  verse  forms  at  all,  and 
the  tripping  flow  of  the  Alexandrine  couplet 
can  never,  to  such  ears,  rise  to  the  dignity,  the 
eloquence,  the  poetic  suggestion  either  of  the 
Miltonic  line  or  even  the  rapid,  staccato  beat 
of  the  four-foot  iambic,  the  meter  of  Scott.  But 
when  a  trained  French  actor  —  and  most 
French  actors  are  trained  in  elocution  as  a 
singer  is  trained  in  colorature  —  tosses  off 
these  Alexandrines,  they  do  achieve  an  effect 
quite  different  from  prose,  musical,  romantic. 
However,  the  very  fact  which  justifies  them  as 
a  verse  form  in  French  completely  condemns 
them  as  a  verse  form  in  English.  This  is  by 
now  such  an  accepted  cant  of  criticism  that  it 
seems  almost  absurd  to  have  to  repeat  it.  The 
lack  of  accent  in  French  justifies  the  iambic 
hexameter.  The  presence  of  accent  in  English, 
the  existence  of  accent  at  the  very  basis  of  Eng- 


74     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

lish  versification,  makes  the  iambic  hexameter, 
especially  when  rhymed,  about  the  most  mo- 
notonous, artificial,  inhuman  verse  form  that 
could  possibly  be  chosen.  It  is  only  fair  to  state 
the  report  that  neither  Miss  Adams  nor  Mr. 
Frohman  was  responsible  for  this  choice,  it 
being  thrust  upon  them  by  M.  Zamacois,  the 
French  author  of  the  play,  who  must  be  vir- 
ginally  ignorant  of  English  literature,  as  only 
an  educated  Parisian  can  be.  But,  after  all,  the 
critic  is  n't  greatly  concerned  with  whose  fault 
the  choice  may  be.  The  choice  was  made,  and 
he  has  to  consider  the  result. 

Matters  were  not  mended  any  by  John 
Raphael,  who  undertook  the  task  of  making 
the  translation  into  the  barbaric  Alexandrines. 
Not  only  is  his  translation  so  commonplace  in 
diction  that  one  wonders  why  he  is  n't  better 
known,  —  poet  laureate,  perhaps,  —  but  in 
style  it  is  often  little  more  than  the  versifica- 
tion of  a  schoolboy  turning  Ovid  into  English. 
Frantic  inversions  of  sentences  occur  to  bring 
about  a  rhyme;  words  are  dragged  in  by  the 
heels,  poor,  little,  honest,  plodding,  prosy 
words,  for  the  same  purpose ;  often  the  rhymes 
are  quite  unsanctioned  by  any  law  of  poetic 
usage,  even  by  the  Brownings ;  and  as  for  the 
ring  and  tramp  of  dramatic  verse,  the  elo- 
quence of  imaginative  phraseology,  the  magic 
of  the  poet,  none  of  these  things  is  here.    One 


RHYME   AND    UNREASON  75 

feels  pretty  sure,  too,  that  they  would  n't  be 
here  even  were  the  Alexandrines  absent,  even 
if  a  more  suitable  meter  had  been  chosen. 
Somebody  once  unjustly  remarked  that  a 
translated  poem  is  a  boiled  strawberry,  un- 
justly, because  T.  E.  Brown's  translations,  for 
example,  prove  well  enough  that  the  trick  can 
be  done,  especially  if  the  original  has  some- 
thing real  to  say.  But  it  takes  a  poet  to  do 
it.  Mr.  Raphael  is  n't  a  poet.  So  when  the 
audience  goes  into  raptures  over  Miss  Adams's 
very  pretty  recitation  of  the  sentimental  pas- 
sage about  the  breeze, 

"Le  souffle  qui  remue  imperceptiblement 
Cette  jeune  glycine  au  tour  du  vieux  sarment," 

and  so  on,  their  raptures,  if  they  have  any 
real  taste  in  poetry,  any  real  judgment  of 
what  is  and  what  is  not  good  verse,  are  wholly 
due  to  their  pleasure  in  seeing  Miss  Adams 
prettily  posed  in  a  tableau  vivant,  and  their 
pleasure  in  hearing  her  small,  sympathetic 
voice  tackling  this  interminable  tale.  Just 
because  a  speech  happens  to  be  in  rhyme,  just 
because  it  has  to  do  with  these  ladylike  acces- 
sories of  the  poets,  "  gentle  zephyrs  "  and  sigh- 
ing maidens  and  perfumes  and  broken  hearts, 
it  is  not  necessarily  poetry,  even  if  in  some 
simple  bosoms  that  gentle  delusion  does  prevail. 
And  if  it  is  not  poetry,  if  it  has  not  caught  the 


76     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

magic  utterance,  if  the  lips  of  it  have  not  been 
touched  with  the  coal  from  the  high  altar,  to 
listen  to  its  poor,  sentimental  masquerade  is 
far  less  pleasant  and  profitable  than  to  listen 
to  simple,  honest  prose,  which  by  its  mere  sim- 
plicity can  often  come  far  closer  to  real  poetry 
than  this  spurious  rhyme  stuff  ever  can. 

Since  we  are  on  the  subject  of  verse,  it  will 
do  nobody  any  harm  to  turn  to  his  Shake- 
speare. Read  from  the  last  act  of  "  The  Mer- 
chant of  Venice  " : 

The  moon  shines  bright.    In  such  a  night  as  this 
When  the  sweet  wind  did  gently  kiss  the  trees, 
And  they  did  make  no  noise,  —  in  such  a  night 
Troilus,  methinks,  mounted  the  Trojan  walls  — 

...  In  such  a  night 
Did  Thisbe  fearfully  o'ertrip  the  dew  — 

...  In  such  a  night 
Stood  Dido,  with  a  willow  in  her  hand, 
Upon  the  wild  sea-banks,  and  waved  her  love 
To  come  again  to  Carthage. 

Here  is  the  very  soul  and  the  magic  of  poetry, 
as  Arnold  pointed  out  in  one  of  his  essays, 
that  transcendent  quality  lurking  in  the  lan- 
guage, one  knows  not  how,  to  subdue  the  brain 
of  the  reader,  to  kindle  his  imagination,  to 
transport  and  to  expand  him.  Go  to  "  The 
Jesters  "  with  those  last  lines  in  your  memory, 
three  of  the  most  transcendent  lines  in  Eng- 
lish poetry,  that  only  Keats  has  equaled,  for 


RHYME   AND   UNREASON  77 

it  is  only  possible  rightly  to  estimate  verse  by 
the  touchstone  of  the  best  examples  —  go  with 
those  lines  as  a  touchstone  and  see  what  magic 
you  can  find  in  "  The  Jesters,"  what  "poetry  " 
anywhere  worthy  of  that  high  title.  There  is 
none;  it  is  metrical  joiner's  work,  and  clumsy 
work  at  that,  nothing  more.  It  deserves  no 
consideration  as  literature;  as  an  example  of 
literary  or  poetic  drama,  merits  no  enthusiasm. 
But  a  line  of  proof  is  worth  more  than  pages 
of  assertion.  Here  are  several  lines,  as  many 
as  I  have  the  heart  to  afflict,  of  Chicofs  lengthy 
tale  about  the  breeze.  The  second  line  quoted 
is  especially  *'a  favorite  of  mine,"  though  I  must 
confess  a  certain  fondness  also  for  the  six- 
teenth, with  its  reminiscence  of  Heine,  and  the 
incomparable  thirteenth,  suggestive  at  first  of 
"  The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,"  but  speedily 
developing  into  originality.  "  Blue  were  her 
eyes  "  is  good ;  but  so  were  the  eyes  of  the 
skipper's  little  daughter.  However,  they  were 
"  soft  as  the  young  sky  at  dawn  "  (which,  by 
the  way,  is  pink),  while  the  skipper's  daugh- 
ter's were  merely  likened  to  fairy  flax.  But 
enough  of  comment.  The  Alexandrines  shall 
speak  for  themselves.     Here  they  are: 


The  gentle  breeze  which  stirs  the  leaves  of  yonder  vine 

Recalls  to  me  a  tale,  a  favorite  of  mine, 

A  story  which  one  day  in  an  old  book  I  found, 

An  ancient  tome,  gaunt,  grim,  black-lettered,  leather-bound, 


78     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

Which  tome,  looking  as  though  't  were  filled  with  talcs  of  sin, 

Promised  but  little  of  the  charm  I  found  within. 

'T  was  in  this  book  I  read  the  tale,  which,  if  you  please, 

I -will  repeat  to-night—  "The  Story  of  the  Breeze." 

A  breeze  one  day,  abroad  on  fun  or  mischief  bent, 

Entered  a  castle  grim,  traversed  the  battlement. 

And  on  the  terrace  found,  sitting  and  spinning  there, 

A  maiden  of  sixteen,  blue  eyed,  with  golden  hair. 

Blue  were  her  eyes  and  soft  as  the  young  sky  at  dawn. 

Or  the  waves  of  the  lake  the  breeze  had  crossed  that  mom, 

And  as  the  intruder  loosed  a  strand  of  golden  hair 

The  maid  looked  up  and  laughed,  so  sweet,  so  chaste,  so  fair. 

That  the  breeze,  who  till  then  had  kissed  and  whirred  away. 

Over  the  trees  and  far,  fickle  until  to  day, 

Knew  that  this  time  his  heart  was  bound  and  tethered  there 

To  that  child  of  sixteen,  blue  eyed,  with  golden  hair, 

For  the  fair  maid  had  won,  won  all  unconsciously, 

A  lover  without  name  and  whom  she  could  not  see. 

While  the  breeze  loved  to  love,  and  for  no  royal  throne 

Would  have  exchanged  his  right  to  love  her  thus  unknown. 

Well  —  it  rhymes. 

But  if  "  The  Jesters  "  had  anything  what- 
ever of  value  to  say  over  and  above  its  form 
there  might  be  some  reason  for  excusing  the 
clumsy  translation.  Unless  memory  is  at  fault 
the  translation  of  "  Cyrano  "  played  here  was 
none  too  good  in  form,  not  so  good,  certainly, 
as  Miss  Gertrude  Hall's  prose  version.  But 
"  Cyrano  "  had  many  things  to  say  that  were  of 
value,  even  if  said  with  less  than  their  original 
poetic  grace.  "  Cyrano "  had  vitals.  Its 
swashbucklings   and   its    romantic   posturings 


RHYME   AND   UNREASON  79 

never  lost  a  certain  hold  on  reality,  were  cap- 
able at  any  moment  of  pathos,  of  dramatic 
seriousness.  Moreover,  its  wit  was  wit;  it 
did  not  merely  call  itself  such.  Its  humor  arose 
from  the  characters,  not,  as  in  "  The  Jesters," 
from  the  land  of  opera  bouffe.  Its  men  were 
men,  its  women  women ;  and  if  their  emotions 
were  somewhat  superlyric,  at  least  they  were 
never  neuter! 

But  "  The  Jesters  "  has  absolutely  nothing 
whatever  to  say  that  has  not  already  been  said 
again  and  again,  mostly  better  said,  and 
mostly,  for  that  matter,  in  "  Cyrano."  The  play 
was  originally  produced  by  Sarah  Bernhardt, 
and  probably  it  was  written  for  her.  It  is  n't 
the  first  play  that  Sarah  has  disported  herself 
in  that  had  nothing  to  say,  but  it  is  one  of  a 
few  that  we  remember  which  says  nothing  so 
tamely.  Most  of  the  others  at  least  made  a 
noise !  The  central  idea  of  the  piece,  that  of  a 
Prince  Charming  disguised  as  a  grotesque 
jester  in  order  to  court  his  lady  love,  might,  in- 
deed, conceivably  yield  to  a  resourceful  play- 
wright and  to  an  actor  like  Coquelin  or  Mans- 
field considerable  fun  and  a  real  situation  or 
two.  But,  though  we  are  told  that  Jacasse  (or 
Chicot,  as  Miss  Adams  prefers  to  be  called, 
fearing,  no  doubt,  that  a  phonetic  pronuncia- 
tion would  be  accepted  by  her  audiences  in  lieu 
of  a  translation!)  worsts  all  his  opponents  in 


80     THE   AMERICAN    STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

a  jesting  tournament,  his  victory  is  about  as 
convincing  as  that  of  the  young  woman  over 
the  milhonaire  in  "  The  Lion  and  the  Mouse." 
Just  as  there  the  real  effect  was  one  of  pity  for 
the  thick  wits  of  the  milhonaire,  so  here  one 
chiefly  scorns  the  other  jesters  instead  of  ad- 
miring Jacasse  (pardon,  Chicot).  And,  of 
course,  the  presence  of  a  woman  in  the  role  is 
utterly  destructive  of  any  illusion  during  the 
so-called  "  love  scenes."  Boys  may  have 
played  Juliet  in  Shakespeare's  day,  but  girls 
cannot  play  Romeo  now,  unless  they  do  it,  as 
Ann  did  in  "  Man  and  Superman,"  by  a  com- 
plete reversal  of  the  sexes. 

The  gifted  and  golden  Sarah,  having  long 
ago  conquered  all  the  female  roles  within  her 
horizon  (which  is  not  so  wide  perhaps  as  the 
world),  Alexander-like,  sighed  for  new  roles 
to  conquer,  and  played  Hamlet  and  L'Aiglon, 
and  now  in  her  declining  years,  just  to  show 
how  little  time  has  touched  her,  this  role  of 
the  youthful  Prince  Charming.  It  must  have 
been  a  perfect  pickle  for  her,  with  its  bravura 
passages  of  rapid  fire  lyrics,  its  long-winded 
speech  about  the  breeze,  its  hump,  its  sword- 
play,  its  love-making  (Sarah  pleading  passion- 
ately as  she  planned  an  additional  chapter  for 
her  autobiography),  its  infantile  romanticism 
and  its  half-baked  emotions.  One  imagines 
her  smiling  to  herself  as  she  walked  through 


RHYME   AND   UNREASON  81 

this  part,  yet  smiling  a  little  wistfully,  for  the 
dead  days  when  it  was  not  needful  to  let  her 
energies  trickle  through  such  tiny  channels. 
And  one  imagines  Paris,  well  aware  of  the 
wistfulness  of  the  smile,  watching,  applauding, 
no  less  kind  to  its  old  favorite  than  New  York 
is  to  its  young  one.  Yet  did  Paris  take  it  all 
quite  seriously,  was  it  unaware  of  the  other 
corner  of  the  smile?     It  seems  incredible. 

Well,  as  with  the  little  UAiglon,  Miss  Adams 
has  once  more  assumed  a  male  role  laid  down 
by  Sarah  the  Grand.  She  has  rushed  in  where 
angles  fear  to  tread.  And  nobody  could  look 
more  charming  and  graceful  in  those  frank 
masculine  garments  than  she.  Indeed  she 
looks  altogether  too  charming.  As  the  gro- 
tesque jester,  her  hump  alone  is  grotesque,  and 
that  is  almost  invisible.  Any  genuine  effort 
to  make  the  disguise  stand  out  by  contrast,  any 
willingness  on  her  part  to  sacrifice  her  per- 
sonal charm  for  the  demands  of  the  play,  is 
lacking.  The  demands,  to  be  sure,  are  slight 
enough;  it  is  no  Rigoletto  that  she  is  called 
upon  to  impersonate,  even  in  jest.  If  it  were 
she  could  not  do  it.  It  is  not  lack  of  ability; 
it  is  lack  either  of  understanding  or  of  willing- 
ness to  let  her  art  stand  higher  than  the  easy 
appeal  to  the  personal  affections  of  a  simple- 
minded  public.  The  creation  of  illusion  in  a 
love  passage  is  beyond  her  power  as  it  is  be- 


82     THE    AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

yond  that  of  any  other  woman  player  in  a 
man's  role;  and  for  this  reason  alone  "The 
Jesters  "  could  never  have  more  than  a  suc- 
cess of  curiosity. 

But  a  little  something  more  than  the  sim- 
pering romance,  the  tame  prettiness  of  the 
play  as  it  is  given  here  is  possible.  And  that 
something  is  not  lost  through  the  clumsiness 
of  Miss  Adams's  supporting  company,  which 
in  most  cases  is  considerable.  It  is  lost  through 
Miss  Adams's  own  failure  to  forego  the  pretty 
and  the  romantic  (I  blush  every  time  I  am 
obliged  to  use  that  excellent  word  in  connec- 
tion with  this  play)  and  make  herself  exter- 
nally unattractive  and  grotesque,  perhaps  in 
voice  and  manner  as  well  as  form  and  garb, 
in  order  to  win  what  dramatic  contrast  and 
what  faint  echo  of  real  romance  the  play  might 
contain.  Now,  when  Miss  Adams  takes  the 
center  of  the  stage,  radiating  that  peculiar, 
elfin  charm  that  has  so  endeared  her  to  the 
public,  looking  as  lovely  as  a  picture,  as  grace- 
ful as  a  sylph,  and  recites  her  speech  about 
the  breeze,  one  thinks  awhile  of  ugly  old 
Cyrano  and  his  speech  below  the  balcony,  and 
then,  more  and  more,  of  Kipling's  poem,  till 
finally  the  devil  whispers  behind  the  scenes, 
"  It's  pretty,  but  is  it  art?" 


SOPHOCLES   IN  THE   BACK  YARD 

(Garden,  February  ii,  1908) 

OF  the  hundred  or  more  dramas  of  Soph- 
ocles only  seven  have  been  preserved 
for  us  in  their  entirety.  The  rest,  if 
they  survive  at  all,  survive  only  in  precious 
fragments.  One  of  these  fragments  is  the 
stately  line: 

For  ever  fairly  fall  the  dice  of  Jove, 

known  in  the  epigram,  "  The  dice  of  Jove 
are  always  loaded." 

Another  is  part  of  a  chorus: 

The  looms  adamantine 

Of  Destiny  weave 
All  sorts  of  devices 

Men's  souls  to  deceive; 
They  cannot  be  measured, 

They  cannot  be  fled; 
[They  wait  by  his  threshold, 

They  wait  by  his  bed.] 

These  fragments  indicate  with  the  brevity  of 
the  Athenian  poets  that  belief  in  Nemesis  so 
characteristic  of  their  dramas,  that  sense  of 


84     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

fate  which  criticism  never  fails  to  mention. 
Criticism  does  not  always  adequately,  even 
correctly,  account  for  it,  however.  The  Greeks, 
certainly  the  Greeks  of  the  age  of  Pericles, 
were  not  fatalists.  Fatalism  belongs  to  a  later 
period,  and  "  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,  for  to- 
morrow we  die  "  was  a  doctrine  of  life  that 
Sophocles  would  have  repudiated  with  lofty 
scorn.  Their  belief  in  fate  was  rather  a  re- 
ligious faith,  a  trust  in  the  moral  order,  in  a 
guiding  power  beyond  and  behind  all  their 
pantheistic  doctrines,  their  legendary  religions. 
So  if  the  sins  of  the  fathers  were  visited  on 
the  children,  as  seemed  so  often  the  case  in 
Greek  history,  they  accounted  for  it  by  the 
justice  of  all  powerful  Jove.  It  was  not  a 
doctrine  of  inherited  sin  either.  It  was  no 
Christian  dogma  of  man's  fall.  The  sins  of 
the  father  brought  suffering  on  the  children, 
but  did  not  make  them  sinful  too.  There  was 
something  profoundly  pitiful  in  this  affliction 
of  the  innocents  to  the  Greek  mind,  but  noth- 
ing hopeless,  nothing  that  demanded  an  elabo- 
rate scheme  of  salvation.  Eventually  the  bal- 
ance of  justice  swung  to  even  beam.  Elecfra 
was  revenged  and  Orestes  purged  of  the  crime 
of  matricide.  Not  to  realize  this  philosophical 
basis  of  Greek  tragedy,  not  to  realize  that  the 
highly  specialized  and  critical  Athenian  audi- 
ences of   the   time   of   Pericles   regarded  the 


SOPHOCLES   IN   THE   BACK   YARD      85 

performance  of  tragic  drama  almost  as  a  re- 
ligious rite,  recalling  as  they  must  have  done 
that  actually  within  the  memories  of  their 
fathers  it  had  been  solely  a  religious  rite  and 
not  drama  at  all,  —  a  lyric  performance  made 
up  of  song,  ritual,  and  the  dance,  —  is  to  miss 
the  spirit  of  Greek  tragedy  entirely.  And  not 
to  detect  in  the  rhetoric,  the  language,  of  such 
a  poet  as  Sophocles,  even  in  translation,  a  chaste 
restraint  and  nobility  of  utterance  that  has  the 
effect,  even  apart  from  the  underlying  thought, 
of  idealizing  and  making  dignified  the  most 
bloody  and  sordid  of  incidents,  is  to  fail  in 
critical  insight. 

It  is  only  when  the  spirit  of  Greek  tragedy 
is  missed,  its  language  and  restraint  uncom- 
prehended,  its  lyricism  and  ritualistic  origin 
forgotten,  that  the  "  Electra  "  of  Hugo  von 
Hofmannstahl  can  be  judged  as  in  any  way 
representative  of  the  "  Electra  "  of  Sophocles. 
Indeed  were  it  even  an  attempt  at  reproducing 
Sophocles,  it  would  be  entitled  only  to  the  most 
scathing  condemnation  as  a  weak  and  feeble 
replica  of  an  original  that  should  be  sacred. 
But  it  is  not  such  an  attempt.  It  is  an  attempt 
to  make  something  new  and  different,  with 
the  story  of  "  Electra "  as  a  starting-point. 
It  no  more  pretends  to  be  Sophocles  than 
Wilde's  "  Salome  "  pretends  to  be  the  Bible. 
Failing  to  grasp  this  fact,  the  spectator  at 


86     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

Mrs.  Campbell's  production  at  the  Garden 
Theatre  who  knew  anything  at  all  about 
Greek  tragedy  was  hard  put  to  get  his 
bearings. 

It  is  significant  that  Von  Hofmannstahl  has 
shifted  the  scene  of  "  Electra  "  to  the  rear  of 
the  palace  of  Clytemnestra.  The  Greek  chorus 
of  ladies  in  waiting  has  become  a  crowd  of 
servants.  Von  Hofmannstahl  is  Sophocles  in 
the  back  yard!  When  the  play  opens  these 
servants  are  discussing  Electra,  who,  it  is  dis- 
closed, is  driven  to  live  with  them,  clothed  in 
rags  and  fed  on  table  refuse.  They  speak  of 
her  as  crouching  in  corners,  as  spitting  at  them 
when  they  taunt  her.  They  draw  a  picture 
so  far  removed  from  the  figure  of  Sophocles, 
who  shone  regal  through  her  rags,  that  before 
Electra  enters,  the  intelligent  beholder  has  been 
prepared  for  quite  a  new  and  different  being 
from  the  heroine  of  the  Greek  drama.  To  say 
that  Mrs.  Campbell  when  she  did  enter  as 
Electra  was  not  Greek  is  to  say  that  nega- 
tively, at  least,  she  played  this  modern  drama 
properly. 

Electra' s  first  speech  in  the  Greek  play  begins 
as  follows: 

Holy  light,  with  Earth  and  Sky, 
Whom  thou  fillest  equally, 
Ah,  how  many  a  note  of  woe. 
Many  a  self-inflicted  blow 


SOPHOCLES   IN   THE    BACK   YARD      87 

On  my  scarred  breast  mightst  thou  mark, 

Ever  as  recedes  the  dark ; 

Known,  too,  all  my  nightlong  cheer 

To  bitter  bed  and  chamber  drear. 

How  I  mourn  my  father  lost. 

Whom  on  no  barbarian  coast 

Did  red  Ares  greet  amain. 
But  as  woodmen  cleave  an  oak 
My  mother's  axe  dealt  murderous  stroke, 
Backed  by  the  partner  of  her  bed, 
Fell  /Egisthus,  on  his  head; 
Whence  no  pity,  save  from  me, 
O  my  father,  flows  for  thee, 

So  falsely,  foully  slain. 

As  the  lyric  speech  goes  on,  interspersed  by 
comments  and  attempts  at  comfort  from  the 
chorus,  and  more  than  once  suggesting  sources 
of  Matthew  Arnold's  poetry,  though  Electra 
declares  she  is  "  uncomely  arrayed,"  it  is  no 
half-crazed  female  talking,  who  would  snarl 
like  a  dog  at  the  servants.  Here  is  only  chaste 
restraint  and  nobility  of  language.  Here  are 
no  such  passages  as  in  the  new  version,  where 
Electra  describes  in  detail,  with  a  kind  of  per- 
verted fury,  the  murder,  the  spattering  of  the 
blood,  the  dragging  forth  of  Agamemnon's 
body  by  the  heels;  where  she  refers  to  her 
own  enforced  virginity  in  literal,  almost  physi- 
ological terms,  talks  of  breasts  empty  of  milk 
and  uncaressed  by  baby  lips;  where  she  am- 
plifies  on   the   queen's   dream,    hinted   at   by 


88     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

Sophocles,  drawing  a  frenzied  picture  of  her 
imagined  revenge,  which  not  content  with 
her  mother's  death  includes  her  torture.  Con- 
trast with  the  language  of  Sophocles  this 
speech  from  Arthur  Symons's  English  ver- 
sion of  the  new  play  (available  in  book 
form),  almost  unctuously  degenerate  in  its 
insistence  on  the  details  of  horror.  Electra 
speaks : 

Where  are  you,  father  ?    Have  you  not  the  strength 

To  lift  your  face  and  look  on  me  again? 

It  is  the  hour,  father,  it  is  our  hour; 

The  hour  when  these  two  slaughtered  you,  your  wife 

And  he  who  lay  in  the  same  bed  with  her. 

Your  kingly  bed.    They  struck  you  in  your  bath, 

Dead:  and  your  blood  ran  over  both  your  eyes, 

And  all  the  bed  steamed  with  the  blood;  then  he. 

The  coward,  took  you  by  your  shoulders,  dragged  you 

Out  of  the  room,  head  foremost,  and  both  legs 

After  it  trailing;  and  your  eyes,  wide  open. 

Staring  behind  them,  saw  into  the  house.  .  .  . 

Your  son  Orestes  and  your  daughters,  we 

These  three,  when  all  is  done  and  there  arises 

Canopied  purple  from  your  streaming  blood, 

The  sun  sucks  upward,  then  we  three,  your  blood, 

Will  dance  about  your  grave;  and  I  will  lift 

Knee  after  knee  above  the  heap  of  dead 

Step  by  step  higher,  and  all  who  see  me  dance, 

Yea,  all  who  see  my  shadow  from  afar 

Dancing,  shall  say:  Behold  how  great  a  king 

Here  holds  high  festival  of  his  flesh  and  blood. 

And  happy  is  he  about  whose  mighty  grave 

His  children  dance  so  royal  a  dance  of  triumph. 


SOPHOCLES   IN   THE   BACK   YARD      89 

Or  take  this  speech  to  Orestes,  frankly  indic- 
ative of  the  spirit  of  the  play: 

.  .  .  And  when 
At  night  before  my  mirror,  I  blew  out 
The  lamp,  I  felt,  and  with  a  maiden  thrill, 
My  naked  body  through  the  heavy  night 
Shine,  as  a  godly  thing  immaculate.  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Do  you  think  if  I 
Had  pleasure  of  my  body,  that  his  sighs 
Would  not  throng  on  me  and  his  groans  not  throng 
About  my  bed?    For  jealous  are  the  dead, 
And  he  has  sent  me  hatred  for  a  bridegroom. 
Hollow-eyed  hatred.    And  that  horrible  thing, 
Breathing  a  viperous  breath,  had  I  to  take 
Into  my  sleepless  bed,  that  it  might  teach  me 
All  that  is  done  between  a  man  and  wife. 

The  Electra  of  the  Greek  drama  is  a  princess 
of  majestic  stature,  an  idealized  character, 
whose  soul-absorbing  passion  of  revenge  trans- 
figures her  into  an  instrument  of  destiny,  whose 
piercing  grief  and  torment  are  part  of  the  sor- 
rows of  her  line,  inflicted  upon  her  by  the  all- 
seeing  gods  and  only  to  be  wiped  out  by  pun- 
ishing the  criminals  who  brought  them  upon  the 
house  of  Agamemnon.  The  story  of  "  Elec- 
tra "  is  not  a  pretty  tale ;  matricide  is  not  a 
pleasant  thing  to  contemplate.  And  it  was  one 
of  the  great  glories  of  the  Greek  poets  that 
they  could  lift  such  a  theme  into  the  regions 
of  tragic  sublimity  by  their  sheer  religious  sin- 


90     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

cerity  and  nobility  of  mind,  arousing  **  pity 
and  fear,"  and  in  Aristotle's  phrase,  "  purg- 
ing the  emotions."  Pity  and  fear  are  not 
aroused  by  Von  Hofmannstahl's  play,  but 
curiosity  and  horror.  The  emotions  are  not 
purged,  but  scraped,  irritated,  made  to  shiver 
and  creep.  In  all  probability  this  was  the  effect 
sought;  certainly  it  is  the  effect  gained. 
Therefore  his  "  Electra  "  is  not  in  any  true 
sense  a  reconstruction  of  Greek  tragedy.  It  is 
something  absolutely  different,  entirely  mod- 
ern, and  no  doubt  degenerate.  However,  ex- 
actly what  constitutes  degeneracy  must  be  left 
to  wiser  heads  to  decide,  to  the  passionately 
proper  Max  Nordau,  perhaps.  Personally  we 
would  not  for  a  moment  intimate  that  a  per- 
formance of  a  Greek  drama,  with  all  the  classic 
accessories  and  with  the  ancient  tongue  once 
more  spoken,  in  the  antique  setting  of  the  Har- 
vard Stadium,  is  not  a  far  more  beautiful  and 
satisfactory  and  uplifting  thing  than  a  perform- 
ance of  Von  Hofmannstahl's  play,  even  with 
Gliick's  overture  for  the  "  Iphigenia  "  (which 
nobody  listened  to) .  But  neither  would  we  inti- 
mate that  a  picture  of  blood  lust  for  revenge, 
a  portrayal  of  a  woman  crazed  by  the  passion 
for  physical  retribution  on  the  bodies  of  those 
who  murdered  her  father,  a  psychopathic  study 
of  the  fabled  Electra,  may  not  be  fascinating, 
curiously  alluring  and  in  no  wise  necessarily 


SOPHOCLES   IN   THE   BACK   YARD     91 

harmful  so  long  as  it  is  not  supposed  to  repre- 
sent anew  the  drama  of  Sophocles.  This  mas- 
querading in  olden  garb,  this  neo-classic  form 
of  the  modern  "  Electra,"  this  simulated  stride 
of  true  tragic  passion,  while  they  are  perversely 
a  part  of  its  uncanny  charm,  are  also  its  danger 
for  the  uncritical  beholder.  Judge  it  not  as 
Greek  drama,  but  as  something  modern  and 
deliberately  cruel  and  bloodlustful,  something 
quite  godless  and  sordid,  not  sublime,  and  the 
new  "  Electra  "  will  hold  for  you  a  new  sensa- 
tion, a  strange  allurement,  inspire  a  shiver  of 
delicious  horror,  a  shudder  of  unsanctified 
delight. 

And  it  is  in  this  spirit  that  Mrs.  Campbell 
played  it.  A  remarkably  striking  woman  to 
look  upon,  and  a  remarkably  effective  actress 
in  certain  roles,  Mrs.  Campbell  has  never  dis- 
played that  glib  virtuosity  of  a  Bernhardt.  The 
blank  verse  oration,  full  of  sound  and  fury, 
and  so  often  signifying  nothing,  it  has  never 
been  hers  to  peal  forth  with  quivering  effect. 
Still  less  has  she  ever  shown  that  she  could 
Sardoudle;  the  Fedoras  and  the  Toscas  are 
not  for  her.  Perhaps  she  has  too  much  scorn 
for  their  falsity  and  pyrotechnics.  But  give 
her  a  character  that  interests  her,  that  wins  her 
belief,  and  she  can  seize  upon  its  salient  outline 
with  bold,  firm  grasp,  and  then  fill  that  outline 
in  with  the  minutest  strokes  of  shading,  with 


92    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

patient  cross  hatching,  and  with  broad  sweeps 
of  color  and  shadows  too.  Thus  she  did  with 
Mrs.  Ehbsmith,  one  of  the  finest  portraits  on 
the  contemporary  stage.  Thus  she  did  with 
Beata  in  "  Es  Lebe  das  Leben."  And  thus  she 
did  with  Electra,  in  Von  Hofmannstahl's 
drama.  She  accepted  it,  she  beheved  in  it, 
she  exerted  herself  on  its  creation,  and  it  came 
to  life  under  her  touch,  a  sinister,  terrible 
woman,  a  strange  perversion  of  the  eternal 
Aholibah,  whose  lust  is  the  lust  for  blood,  whose 
desire  is  toward  murder  and  revenge.  "  I  have 
kissed  thy  mouth,  lokanaan,  I  have  kissed  thy 
mouth,"  sings  Salome,  while  the  acid  strings 
in  Mr.  Strauss's  multitudinous  orchestra  are 
biting  horribly.  And  Electra' s  triumph  dance 
before  the  palace  door  says  no  less  plainly,  "  I 
have  had  thy  blood,  Clytemnestra,  I  have  had 
thy  blood,"  while  Mr.  Strauss's  acid  strings 
in  his  operatic  version  will  no  doubt  bite  hor- 
ribly once  more.  That  indicates  the  spirit  and 
the  achievement  of  Mrs.  Campbell's  per- 
formance. 

To  bring  this  conception  to  the  birth  the 
sonorous  delivery  of  the  sensuous  verse  of  Mr. 
Symons,  after  the  manner  of  the  "  old  school  " 
actors  of  poetic  tragedy,  would  have  been  out 
of  place  and  ineffective.  It  would  have  been 
as  out  of  place  as  a  make-up  suggesting  the 
tragedy  queens  of  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  in- 


SOPHOCLES   IN   THE   BACK   YARD      93 

stead  of  an  Aubrey  Beardsley  drawing,  which 
is  what  Mrs.  Campbell  actually  suggested. 
Her  method  of  speech  was  a  natural  reading 
of  the  verse,  that  let  its  sensuous  similes  tell 
rather  than  its  measured  roll;  and  her  impas- 
sioned outbreaks  came  as  a  smothered  fury 
rather  than  an  oratorical  period.  There  is 
much  to  be  said  for  this  method  under  any  cir- 
cumstances. Here  it  was  the  only  method.  For 
here  Electra  is  not  a  figure  of  tragic  dignity 
and  noble  passion,  neither  an  instrument  of 
destiny  nor  its  victim.  Nemesis  is  not  here, 
the  rushing  of  the  wings  of  Fate.  She  is  a 
woman  sick  with  the  lust  for  blood,  "  some- 
thing curious  and  sensual."  In  her  black  rags 
and  her  grape-blue  headgear,  the  naked  marble 
of  her  bosom  deepening  the  rings  below  her 
thirsty  eyes  and  accentuating  the  cruel  crimson 
of  her  lip  line,  Mrs.  Campbell  moved  a  sinister 
figure  about  the  stage,  a  figure  not  of  brooding 
misery,  but  malignant  hate,  to  dig  with  her 
own  hands  for  the  hatchet  when  she  thinks 
Orestes  dead,  to  dance  in  a  kind  of  fit  of  horrid 
joy  when  she  has  heard  her  mother's  screams 
and  seen  the  King  dragged  forth  and  slain, 
falling  at  last  prone  on  the  stage  in  a  faint, 
worn  out  with  the  excess  of  passion,  like  some 
creature  in  a  Bacchanalian  orgy,  some  figure 
from  the  ancient  pictures  of  the  Dionysian 
mysteries. 


94     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

Sophocles  would  not  have  recognized  his 
Elcctra  in  this  performance,  true  enough.  But 
Sophocles  would  not  have  recognized  his  lan- 
guage or  his  spirit  in  such  a  speech  as  Electras 
to  her  sister,  "  Swear  to  me,  mouth  upon 
mouth  " ;  or  his  play  in  the  abolition  of  the 
lyric  choruses,  or  in  the  total  subordination  of 
the  part  of  Orestes,  or  in  the  lost  characteriza- 
tion of  the  sister,  Chrysothemis,  in  the  original 
so  sharply  contrasted  in  spirit  with  Electra,  or 
in  the  omission  of  that  splendid  throwing  open 
of  the  portals  to  disclose  Orestes  by  his 
mother's  corpse  and  his  recognition  by  the 
King,  or  above  all  in  the  dance.  This  is  not 
Sophocles's  Electra.  And  any  criticism  of  Mrs. 
Campbell  because  she  did  not  rise  to  sweeping 
heights,  fulfilling  the  conception  of  Greek 
tragic  poetry,  ample  and  large  and  nobly  elo- 
quent, is  utterly  futile  and  beside  the  point. 
What  she  did  is  what  she  should  have  done; 
she  created  by  picture  and  pose  and  the  play 
of  passion  over  her  wonderful  face,  by  smoth- 
ered voice  and  baleful  outbursts,  by  body  and 
by  speech,  a  definite  and  unforgetable  portrait 
of  the  nursed  fury  of  revenge,  of  the  thirst  for 
blood,  of  perverted  lust.  It  is  as  foolish  to  talk 
of  loveliness,  or  dignity,  or  nobility  in  this  per- 
formance, as  some  have  done,  as  it  is  to  find 
fault  with  it  for  lacking  these  qualities.  It 
did  not  possess  in  any  ordinary  sense  of  those 


SOPHOCLES   IN   THE   BACK  YARD     95 

words  loveliness,  or  dignity,  or  nobility,  and 
probably  it  did  not  aim  to.  It  did  exactly  what 
it  set  out  to  do  definitely,  hence  eloquently,  and 
that  was  to  portray  the  Electra  of  Von  Hof- 
mannstahl.  Because  it  succeeded,  it  was  a 
fine  performance  and  needs  no  further  defence 
or  justification. 


MR.   JONES'S   REVIVAL 

(Knickerbocker,  September  30,  1907) 

MR.  JONES'S  new  play,  "  The  Galile- 
an's Victory  "  (or  ''  The  Evangelist," 
if  that  inept  title  must  be  used),  seems 
to  many  people  rather  more  a  revival.  And 
they  are  more  than  half  right.  It  is  more 
than  a  dramatized  revival  meeting,  of  course; 
but  it  is  certainly  that,  psychologically,  and 
even,  at  the  close  of  acts  three  and  four,  in 
actual  externals.  The  revivalist  is  seen  upon 
the  platform,  the  repentant  sinner  mounts 
beside  him,  the  hymns  are  sung,  the  red  ban- 
ner is  waved,  even  the  glass  of  water  is 
seen  on  the  table.  But  because  of  this  very 
fact  about  the  drama  the  attitude  of  the  aud- 
iences toward  it  furnishes  quite  as  pungent  a 
comment  upon  religious  conditions  as  anything 
in  the  play. 

And  why?  Because  this  drama  relies  for  its 
solution  upon  one  of  the  deepest  and  most  fun- 
damental facts  of  religious  experience;  it  deals 
not  only  with  the  passion  of  love  but  the  pas- 
sion of  repentance,  worked  out  through  the 
influence  of  religious  example,  and  ending  in 
the  cry  of  the  erring  wife  as  she  falls  on  her 


MR.    JONES'S   REVIVAL  97 

knees:  "Christ  shall  have  lone!  [her  little 
daughter].  Christ  shall  have  me !  "  —  as  plain 
a  case  of  the  transfiguring  experience  known 
as  "  conversion  "  as  could  well  be  found.  Now, 
most  of  us  profess,  at  least,  some  religion. 
And  those  of  us  who  do  not,  but  who  have  the 
slightest  knowledge  of  religious  literature 
or  who  have  had  the  slightest  contact  with 
religious  gatherings,  cannot  be  so  blind  as 
to  deny  the  reality  of  "  conversion,"  the 
tremendous  force  in  some  people  of  the 
orthodox  religious  emotions.  The  play,  then, 
deals  with  realities,  with  important  and  vital 
realities.  Yet  it  is  probably  a  perfectly  safe 
statement  —  certainly  it  is  a  statement  made 
after  numerous  conversations  with  all  sorts  of 
people,  skeptics,  believers,  Jews,  Protestants, 
and  a  Roman  Catholic,  who  have  seen  the  play 

—  that  for  the  bulk  of  the  audience  the  religious 
motives  of  the  drama  have  a  kind  of  unreality. 
As  one  woman,  who  attends  a  church  every 
Sunday  and  was  brought  up  in  the  odor  of 
Episcopal  sanctity,  expressed  it,  "  I  'm  quite 
sure  Mrs.  NuneJiam  loved  her  child,  and  almost 
sure  she  loved  Dr.  Allen,  but  her  conversion 
did  n't  convince  me  a  bit."  If  Mr.  Jones  had 
done  his  work  badly  this  remark  would  have 
no  significance.  But  he  has  n't.  He  has,  to 
be  sure,  smothered  his  story  with  a  lot  of  talk 

—  pretty  good  talk,  but  talk,  none  the  less  — 

7 


98     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

but  the  unconvincing  scenes  of  Mrs.  Nune- 
ham's  conversion  are  quite  as  skilfully  handled 
as  the  scenes  with  her  lover  or  her  child,  which 
do  convince.  Moreover,  her  innate  suscepti- 
bility to  religious  influence  is  prepared  for  from 
the  very  first.  Why,  then,  does  the  drama  go 
lame  with  the  audience,  where  by  every  right 
it  should  rise  up  and  stride? 

In  his  play  Mr.  Jones  has  once  more  made 
use  of  smug  and  fussy  Nonconformist  types 
of  clergymen  and  the  narrow  and  self-satisfied 
Churchman,  setting  them  over  against  each 
other  and  also  over  against  an  evangelist, 
something  between  a  Salvation  Army  General 
and  a  Moody,  who  makes  them  all  look, 
as  Mr.  Jones  intended,  like  a  very  inefifective 
lot  of  Christians.  He  has  further  reintro- 
duced the  erring  wife  to  our  attention  and 
suggested  that  her  reformation  lies  through 
religion  as  preached  by  the  evangelist,  al- 
most through  that  heightened  experience 
known  as  "  conversion."  Over  against  her  he 
has  set  her  husband,  who  makes  science  his 
religion  and  is  left  to  its  cold  and  pallid  com- 
forts at  the  end.  Sylvanus  Rebbings,  the  re- 
vivalist, who  dominates  the  drama,  would  seem 
to  typify  in  Mr.  Jones's  purpose  a  present  day 
attempt  to  live  the  life  of  Christ,  and  so  preach 
the  religion  of  Christ,  to  the  shame  of  the 
creeds.    And  he  further  would  seem  to  exem- 


MR.    JONES'S   REVIVAL  99 

plify,  in  the  author's  purpose,  the  perfectly 
scientific  truth  that  psychologically  feeling  and 
conduct,  not  thought,  are  the  essence  of  reli- 
gion. We  pray  because  we  can't  help  it,  be- 
lieve in  God  because  we  need  Him,  are  reli- 
gious because  there  is  something  in  our  nature 
which  demands  the  uplift  and  strength  of  the 
*'  not  ourselves,"  a  strength  so  real  that  reason 
cannot  deny  it.  Mr.  Jones  has,  in  the  person 
of  Fyson,  who  calls  England  the  "  country  of 
200  hundred  religions  and  only  one  sauce," 
introduced  the  modern  skeptic  —  the  man  who 
has  no  faith  because  he  has  studied  them  all  — 
as  a  sort  of  cynical  Greek  chorus.  And  he  has 
preached  in  no  uncertain  tones  his  Emersonian 
belief  that  *'  God  builds  His  temples  on  the  ruin 
of  churches,  in  the  human  heart " ;  that  the 
religious  need  is  eternal ;  that  it  must  be  satis- 
fied if  we  would  find  the  fullest  salvation  and 
peace,  and  that  the  way  was  once  shown  very 
plainly  and  simply,  to  be  reshown  to-day  not 
by  this  or  that  body  of  doctrine  but,  as  it  hap- 
pened in  this  play,  by  a  poor  revivalist  with  the 
boundless  love  of  God,  Man,  and  straight, 
honest,  charitable  living  in  his  heart.  All  this 
he  has  done  by  telling  the  story  of  a  wife  who 
erred  and  was  brought  to  repentance  by  a  re- 
vival meeting.  Why  do  we  accept  her  error, 
but  not  her  repentance?  Why  is  the  play  a 
failure? 


100  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

For  answer  we  will  plunge  boldly  into  a  con- 
sideration of  the  case  of  Mr.  S.  H.  Hadley, 
who  was  an  active  and  useful  rescuer  of  drunk- 
ards in  New  York.    Let  him  speak: 

"  One  Tuesday  evening  I  sat  in  a  saloon  in 
Harlem,  a  homeless,  friendless,  dying  drunkard.  I 
had  pawned  or  sold  everything  that  would  buy  a 
drink.  I  could  n't  sleep  unless  I  was  dead  drunk. 
I  had  n't  eaten  for  days  and  for  four  nights  pre- 
ceding I  had  suffered  with  delirium  tremens,  or  the 
horrors,  from  midnight  till  morning.  ...  As  I  sat 
there  thinking  I  seemed  to  feel  some  great  and 
mighty  presence.  ...  I  walked  up  to  the  bar  and 
pounded  it  with  my  fist  till  I  made  the  glasses 
rattle.  Those  who  stood  by  drinking  looked  on 
with  scornful  curiosity.  I  said  I  would  never  take 
another  drink  if  I  died  on  the  street,  and  I  really  felt 
as  though  that  would  happen  before  morning. 
Something  said :  '  If  you  want  to  keep  this  promise 
go  and  have  yourself  locked  up.'  I  went  to  the 
nearest  station  house  and  had  myself  locked  up." 

He  was  released  after  a  bit  and  went  to  his 
brother's  house,  where  he  was  put  to  bed.  Then 
the  story  goes  on: 

"  When  I  arose  the  following  Sabbath  morning  I 
felt  that  day  would  decide  my  fate  and  toward  even- 
ing it  came  into  my  head  to  go  to  Jerry  McAuley's 
Mission.  I  went.  He  rose  and  'mid  deep  silence 
told  his  experience.  There  was  a  sincerity  about  this 
man  that  carried  conviction  with  it,  and  I  found 
myself  saying:  *I  wonder  if  God  can  save  me?' 


MR.    JONES'S   REVIVAL  101 

When  the  invitation  was  given  I  knelt  down  with  a 
crowd  of  drunkards.  Jerry  made  the  first  prayer. 
Oh,  what  a  conflict  was  going  on  for  my  poor  soul ! 
A  blessed  whisper  said,  '  Come  ' ;  the  devil  said, 
*  Be  careful.'  I  halted  but  a  moment,  and  then  with 
breaking  heart  I  said,  '  Dear  Jesus,  can  you  help 
me  ?  '  Never  with  mortal  tongue  can  I  describe  that 
moment.  Although  up  to  that  moment  my  soul  had 
been  filled  with  indescribable  gloom,  I  felt  the  glori- 
ous brightness  of  the  noonday  sun  shine  into  my 
heart.  I  felt  I  was  a  free  man.  Oh,  the  precious 
feeling  of  safety,  of  freedom,  of  resting  on  Jesus! 
I  felt  that  Christ  with  all  his  brightness  and  power 
had  come  into  my  life;  that,  indeed,  old  things  had 
passed  away  and  all  things  had  become  new. 

"  From  that  moment  till  now  I  have  never  wanted 
a  drink  of  whiskey  and  I  have  never  seen  money 
enough  to  make  me  take  one." 

Dr.  Leuba  remarks  that  in  this  experience 
there  is  little  or  no  doctrinal  theology ;  it  starts 
with  a  need  for  higher  help  and  ends  wth  a 
feeling  that  such  help  has  been  found.  Mr. 
Hadley's  whole  life  thereafter  was  a  testimony 
to  the  efficacy  of  his  conversion.  Now,  the 
internal  analogy  of  this  case  to  that  of  Mrs. 
Nuneham  in  the  Jones  play  is  striking.  She 
had  sinned ;  on  her  overwrought  nerves  at  the 
right  moment  came  the  influence  of  the  evan- 
gelist; the  testimony  of  her  erring  sister,  whose 
sin  was  like  her  own,  convinced  her  that  she, 
too,  would  find  help  in  confession;  she  con- 
fessed  to   her   husband;   and   later   she,    too, 


102  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

found  the  complete  transformation  wrought  by 
"  resting  on  Jesus."  There  was  no  doctrinal 
theology  about  it.  Mr.  Jones  made  that  plain 
enough  by  his  satire  of  the  sectarian  clergy- 
man. Her  transformation  caused  her  to  give 
up  her  lover,  and  there  is  no  more  reason  for 
supposing  that  she  ever  went  back  to  him  or 
th.at  she  did  not  find  happiness  of  a  new  kind 
in  spite  of  her  sin  than  there  is  to  doubt  this 
authentic  record  of  Mr.  Hadley.  Moreover, 
as  Professor  James  says,  "  How  irrelevantly 
remote  seem  all  our  usual  refined  optimisms 
and  intellectual  and  moral  consolations  in  pres- 
ence of  a  need  of  help  like  this !  Here  is  the 
real  core  of  the  religious  problem.  Help! 
Help!  No  prophet  can  claim  to  bring  a  final 
message  unless  he  says  things  that  will  have 
a  sound  of  reality  in  the  ears  of  victims  such 
as  these.  But  the  deliverance  must  come  in 
as  strong  a  form  as  the  complaint  if  it  is  to  take 
effect;  and  that  seems  a  reason  why  the  coarser 
religions,  revivalistic,  orgiastic,  with  blood  and 
miracles  and  supernatural  operations,  may  pos- 
sibly never  be  displaced.  Some  constitutions 
need  them  too  much."  A'Irs.  Nuncliam  cried 
for  help;  and  she  found  it  —  some  would  say 
in  a  coarser  form  of  religion.  Mr.  Jones  would 
say  in  a  strong  inpouring  of  the  simple,  primi- 
tive Christianity.  Her  case  is  absolutely  au- 
thentic.   And  yet  —  and  yet  it  leaves  us  almost 


MR.   JONES'S  REVIVAL  103 

cold  and  but  half  convinced  when  we  see  it  on 
the  stage! 

Beside  the  importance  of  a  fact  like  this,  all 
bickerings  about  this  or  that  technical  merit 
or  defect  in  the  drama  sink  to  utter  insignifi- 
cance. We  are  confronted  with  the  question: 
Are  the  religious  emotions  incapable  of  con- 
vincing representation  on  the  stage?  And 
why?  Is  a  whole  vast  field  of  human  effort 
and  aspiration  to  be  barred  from  the  play- 
house, not  because  it  does  not  exist  in  life,  but 
because  we  do  not  accept  it  as  real  and  inter- 
esting when  we  see  it  in  a  drama?  Again, 
why?  The  answer  in  its  baldest  state  is  proba- 
bly not  single  but  double :  the  reason  is  partly 
in  us,  partly  in  the  drama.  Fully  to  answer 
the  question  would  require  a  tabulation  of 
hundreds  of  personal  confessions  of  theater- 
goers. Manifestly,  then,  the  answer  attempted 
here  is  at  best  perhaps  in  the  nature  of  a 
hypothesis. 

First,  to  find  the  reason  for  the  lack  of  con- 
viction in  stage  religious  emotions  by  looking 
within  ourselves.  Whatever  our  religious  be- 
liefs or  negations,  a  little  introspection  will 
probably  disclose  to  most  of  us  our  instinctive 
feeling  that  the  religious  emotions  are  in  their 
essence  something  private,  intimate,  personal. 
They  have  their  outward  manifestations  in 
conduct,  but  it  is  in  their  inwardness,  their 


104  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

unique  quality  of  seeming  to  come  directly  to 
us  from  the  Beyond  without  the  aid  or  inter- 
position of  human  agencies  that  gives  them 
their  peculiar  flavor.  Ringed  around  as  we  all 
are  by  the  impenetrable  wall  of  personality, 
living,  as  Pater  says,  "  in  our  own  dream  of  a 
world,"  there  are  yet  many  emotions  and  pas- 
sions that  seem  almost  to  set  us  free,  to  enable 
us  to  go  out  of  our  own  shell  and  creep  for  the 
moment  into  the  shell  of  a  fellow  man.  Such 
are  the  passions  of  sex  love,  of  motherhood,  of 
jealousy  and  hatred,  of  greed,  of  revenge. 
Mrs,  Nuneham's  love  for  her  child  lone,  or 
for  Dr.  Allen,  even  her  fear  of  discovery  and 
her  sense  of  shame  are  directly  and  vividly 
understandable  to  an  audience.  They  speak  a 
common  speech;  they  somehow  get  in  to  us 
over  the  wall  of  self.  But  each  man's  religious 
emotions  are  peculiarly  and  irrevocably  his 
own.  They  never  come  to  him  from  a  fellow. 
And  whether  they  rise  from  his  "  subliminal 
self,"  as  the  psychologists  say,  or  come  from 
God,  as  the  Church  says,  the  effect  is  abso- 
lutely the  same  —  they  seem  to  come  from  the 
Beyond.  Therefore,  words  that  can  in  a  meas- 
ure convey  the  sense  of  his  other  emotions  to 
his  fellows,  fail  when  used  of  these.  There- 
fore, the  religious  emotions  of  his  fellows  have 
for  him,  when  represented  by  words  —  in  art 
or  life  —  a  curious  unreality.     The  speech  of 


MR.   JONES'S   REVIVAL  105 

the  ordinary  emotions  connects  us  with  a  world 
of  facts  and  with  each  other.  The  speech  of  the 
rehgious  emotions  connects  us  with  a  world 
beyond  and  above  the  facts  and  each  separate 
soul  is  called  on  to  make  the  connection  for 
himself.  Does  not  this  suggest  a  partial  ex- 
planation of  why  the  religious  emotions  on  the 
stage,  and  more  especially  the  more  heightened 
and  mystic  emotions  such  as  conversion,  fail 
as  a  convincing  dramatic  motive  with  a  big, 
mixed,  and  none  too  seriously  inclined  audi- 
ence? Not  every  one  indeed,  even  of  the  most 
pronounced  religious  sentiments  and  convic- 
tions, has  experienced  conversion.  Most  of  us 
perhaps  live  all  our  lives  in  *'  a  universe  one 
story  high,"  which  makes  the  whole  process  of 
transformation  in  another  doubly  hard  to  com- 
prehend; that  internal  upheaval  and  change 
in  values  which  to  us  who  have  been  more  or 
less  true  to  one  single  self  all  our  lives  seems 
often  perhaps  illogical  and  unreal.  Every  day, 
too,  religion  is  insisting  less  and  less  on  "  con- 
version." The  loss  of  creeds  means  the  loss  of 
certain  mental  processes.  To  some  of  us,  pos- 
sibly, "  The  Evangelist "  seems  that  most 
hopeless  of  all  things  for  a  play  —  old-fash- 
ioned. In  his  attempt  to  be  modern,  has  not 
Mr.  Jones  gone  back  to  the  oldest  formula  of 
evangelistic  "  salvation  "? 

And  here  also  we  may  see  where  the  stage 


106  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

itself  has  failed  to  handle  these  emotions,  even 
in  Mr.  Jones's  play,  in  the  most  nearly  effective 
way.  For  the  stage  is  surely  in  part  to  blame. 
The  more  intimate  and  personal  the  emotion 
depicted,  the  more  intimate  and  personal  must 
be  the  treatment,  if  the  stage  would  convince. 
You  cannot  paint  a  miniature  with  a  palette 
knife.  You  could  not  represent  the  soul  states 
of  the  people  in  "  The  Master  Builder  "  by  the 
style  of  "  Virginius."  And,  with  all  due  re- 
spect to  Mr.  Jones,  you  cannot  represent  the 
conversion  of  Mrs.  Nuneham  by  sublimated 
melodrama.  For  when  all  is  said  and  done,  in 
his  serious  plays  at  least,  Mr.  Jones  has  never 
got  the  virus  of  "  The  Silver  King  "  out  of  his 
system.  Mrs.  Nuneham  is  moved  to  make  her 
confession  by  watching  a  revival  meeting  in 
full  swing.  We  know  what  is  going  on  within 
her  mind,  we  know  that  it  is  a  perfectly  possible 
situation,  which  in  real  life  has  happened  again 
and  again — we  know,  intellectually.  But  emo- 
tionally we  do  not  know,  because  her  emotions 
have  begun  to  enter  that  region  of  the  reli- 
gious consciousness  where  they  cease  to  speak 
a  universal  language  and  adopt  an  utterly  per- 
sonal one.  To  make  us  feel  with  her,  her  soul 
state  must  somehow  be  laid  bare  to  view.  And 
here  the  methods  of  melodrama,  even  of  the 
ordinary  "  well  made  play,"  are  quite  inade- 
quate.    Perhaps  there  was  a  time  when  the 


MR.    JONES'S   REVIVAL  107 

"  Ben  Hurs  "  and  "  Sign  of  the  Crosses,"  and 
other  semi-rehgious  plays  made  some  sort  of  a 
rehgious  appeal  to  certain  people.  But  the  time 
for  that  is  over  on  any  considerable  scale. 
Even  as  religion  itself  has  entered  on  a  new 
era  where  the  individual  standard  of  judgment 
prevails,  the  drama,  thanks  in  a  large  measure 
to  Ibsen,  has  entered  on  a  new  era  where  the 
individual  delineation  of  character  and  emotion 
prevails.  If  a  man  and  a  girl  kiss  each  other 
or  a  mother  embraces  her  child,  even  in  Eighth 
Avenue  melodrama,  we  are  still  ready  to  be- 
lieve that  they  love  each  other,  because  their 
mere  act  fires  in  us  a  whole  train  of  associated 
ideas  drawn  from  daily  life.  Habit  and  con- 
vention, too,  help  the  dramatist  and  actors. 
But  with  the  more  intimate  and  subtle  emo- 
tions —  among  which  the  religious  emotions 
take  first  place  —  no  such  train  awaits  to  be 
fired.  The  dramatist  cannot  paint  these  emo- 
tions in  big,  sketchy  strokes  and  hope  to  win 
conviction.  If  once  he  won  a  measure  of  con- 
viction for  them  by  this  method  it  was  because 
the  public  knew  no  other  way.  The  other  way 
is  known  now,  and  it  must  be  followed  when 
religious  emotions  are  represented. 

"  In  other  words,"  says  the  heroic  reader,  if 
any  reader  has  endured  thus  far !  —  "In  other 
words,  *  The  Galilean's  Victory '  would  have 
been  a  better  play  if  Ibsen  had  written  it! " 


108  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

Well,  the  reader's  heroism  must  be  re- 
warded by  letting  him  say  what  he  pleases! 
Personally  I  admire  Mr.  Jones  tremendously. 
His  wit,  his  sincerity,  his  keen  observation,  his 
pungent  dialogue,  his  literary  style,  are  wholly 
admirable  and  refreshing.  I  even  forgive  him 
the  lack  of  humor  in  his  treatment  of  his  heroes. 
For  instance,  would  n't  Rebbings,  in  the  pres- 
ent play,  have  gained  in  appeal  and  reality  if 
he  had  possessed  just  a  touch  of  that  quaint- 
ness  in  speech  which  was  exemplified  by  the 
English  revivalist  Billy  Bray,  who  said,  *'  I 
can't  help  praising  the  Lord.  As  I  go  along 
the  street  I  lift  up  one  foot  and  it  seems  to 
say  *  Glory,'  and  I  lift  up  the  other  and  it 
seems  to  say  *  Amen.'  "  But  we  cannot  help 
thinking  that  it  is  not  so  much  the  quantity 
of  talk  after  all  which  causes  the  lack  of  con- 
viction in  his  latest  play  as  it  is  the  touch  of 
antiquity  in  his  methods,  the  failure  to  get  right 
down  to  the  intimate  exposition,  step  by  step, 
of  Mrs.  Nuneham's  change  in  heart.  The  re- 
ligious nature  of  this  change  made  his  task 
doubly  difficult  and  perhaps  impossible  com- 
pletely to  accomplish.  But  certainly,  by  ap- 
plying the  methods  of  Ibsen,  he  could  have 
accomplished  more  than  he  did ;  he  could  have 
made  his  woman  figure  live  for  a  far  greater 
portion  of  his  audiences  from  one  end  of  the 
play  to  the  other,  not  only  in  her  erring  pas- 


MR.   JONES'S   REVIVAL  109 

sions  of  sex  love  and  in  her  motherhood,  but 
in  her  passion  of  repentance  as  well  and  in  her 
final  surrender  of  herself,  of  all  her  warring 
impulses,  to  the  great  peace  and  security  "  that 
passeth  understanding." 


BUNYAN   PERSECUTED  AGAIN 

(Hackett,  November  ii,  1907) 

THE  failure  of  ''The  Evangelist"  by 
Henry  Arthur  Jones  afforded  occa- 
sion to  comment  on  the  difficulty  of 
representing  the  religious  emotions  in  the 
drama,  especially  of  representing  those  subtle, 
personal  emotions,  those  perhaps  morbid  doubts 
and  broodings  and  visions,  which  constitute 
the  preparation  for  the  great  spiritual  adven- 
ture of  conversion,  as  well  as  the  emotions  of 
conversion  itself.  After  Miss  Henrietta  Cros- 
man's  appearance  in  a  stage  version  of  Bun- 
yan's  "  Pilgrim  Progress,"  made  by  James 
MacArthur,  the  same  remarks  are  again  in 
order.  Bunyan's  Christian,  in  fact,  may  be 
taken  as  the  classic  example  of  the  man  who 
seeks  salvation  through  conversion,  —  conver- 
sion, that  is,  in  the  narrower  sense  of  Protes- 
tant Christianity.  Conversion  "  denotes  the 
process,  gradual  or  sudden,  by  which  a 
self  hitherto  divided  and  consciously  wrong, 
inferior  and  unha])py,  becomes  unified  and 
consciously  right,  superior  and  happy  in  con- 
sequence of  its  firmer  hold  upon  religious  real- 


BUNYAN   PERSECUTED   AGAIN        111 

ities."  Especially  to  the  Nonconformists  of 
Bunyan's  day,  among  whom  our  Puritan  an- 
cestors are  counted,  this  meant  first  a  passion- 
ate attention  to  self,  a  brooding,  melancholy, 
almost  sickly  conscience,  and  then  a  great  re- 
lease through  belief  in  the  Cross,  through  a 
concentration  of  the  attention  on  the  life  to 
come.  To  most  of  us  to-day  this  does  not 
seem  the  healthy  minded  view  of  the  universe ; 
and  to  many  of  us  both  the  preliminary  despair 
of  soul,  conviction  of  sin,  horror  at  the  wicked- 
ness of  this  world  and  the  subsequent  exalta- 
tion of  faith  and  the  renunciation  of  this  world 
are  almost  incomprehensible.  Yet  once  they 
were  facts  of  common  experience,  and  even 
to-day  they  are  far  less  uncommon  than  those 
of  us  suppose  who  live  in  the  white  light  that 
beats  upon  Broadway.  And  they  are  the  facts 
which  give  to  ''  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  its 
real  significance  in  the  history  of  the  faith  and 
fear  of  the  English  nation. 

With  that  truth  held  fast  in  mind  the  utter 
futility  of  the  present  stage  version  of  Bun- 
yan's  book  becomes  doubly  apparent.  The 
simple  fact  that  "  The  Christian  Pilgrim  "  is 
a  bore  is,  of  course,  sufficient  to  condemn  it. 
Indeed,  the  most  ardent  workers  for  the  cause 
of  religion  should  be  the  first  to  rejoice  in  the 
failure  of  a  play  that  makes  solemn  things 
merely  dull  and  turns  the  heart  of  the  doubter 


112  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

to  the  other  road  in  instinctive  repulsion.  The 
mass  of  the  theatergoing  pubHc  ask  no  other 
excuse  to  stay  away  than  the  plea  of  dulness, 
and  they  are  quite  right.  But  there  are  other 
excuses  to  be  urged,  and  first  of  them  is  this 
failure  of  the  stage  version  to  make  the  story 
a  gripping  reality,  to  make  of  Christian  other 
than  a  lay  figure,  to  recreate  the  homely,  heart- 
stinging,  emotional  appeal  of  Bunyan's  book. 
Failing  in  that,  it  failed  absolutely  to  justify 
itself.  It  tampered  with  a  religious  and  liter- 
ary masterpiece,  and  achieved  only  a  kind  of 
paint  and  pasteboard  blasphemy.  It  may  have 
pleased  Miss  Crosman  by  placing  her  in  the 
center  of  the  stage  for  long  periods,  where 
she  could  repeat,  in  a  monotonous  rising  and 
falling  inflection  (or  rather  infliction)  the 
ringing  speeches  of  Christian,  though  in  all 
conscience  her  Christian  was  far  enough  away 
from  the  rugged,  racy,  if  soul-tortured  fellow 
of  Bunyan.  It  may  have  pleased  her  managers 
by  aff"ording  them  a  chance  to  display  lavish 
if  wholly  unsuitable  scenery,  and  giving  them 
an  opportunity  to  appear  as  patrons  of  Art 
with  a  big  A.  But  to  all  who  love  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  of  whatever  sect;  to  all  who  re- 
vere English  literature  and  enter  with  unshod 
feet  at  the  portals  of  Bunyan's  masterpiece,  to 
all  who  hold  the  various  arts  of  music  and 
drama  and  fiction  in  proper  appreciation  and 


BUNYAN   PERSECUTED   AGAIN        113 

respect  for  their  differences,  this  stage  version 
of  "  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  is  an  ill-timed, 
misjudged,  uneffective  presumptuous  thing. 
There  is  no  use  trying  to  excuse  it  on  the 
ground  that  it  "  meant  well,"  that  it  "  tried  to 
do  something  fine."  It  did  not  try  to  do  some- 
thing fine,  but  something  presumptuous  and 
silly.  It  ought  never  to  have  been  put  on  the 
stage. 

"So  hot,  my  little  Sir?"  as  Emerson  used 
to  say.  Yes,  so  hot !  For  you  cannot  love  the 
drama  unless  you  love  other  art  forms  as  well. 
You  cannot  estimate  the  worth  of  a  play  unless 
you  are  in  love  with  life.  You  cannot  respect 
a  playwright  unless  you  respect  his  brother 
craftsmen.  And  when  you  see  a  great  pas- 
sage of  original  literature  such  as  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  fight  between  Apollyon  and  Chris- 
tian reduced  to  the  weak  absurdity  of  a  stage 
duel  with  tin  swords,  your  shame  for  the  stage 
is  in  proportion  to  your  love  for  great  litera- 
ture. Or  when  your  childish  mind  has  pon- 
dered with  awe  in  the  dark  of  your  little 
chamber  over  those  words  of  the  Psalmist,^ 
"  Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  Valley  of 
the  Shadow  of  Death,  I  will  fear  no  evil " ; 
and  your  youth  time  has  seen  you  stand  at  the 
open  grave  of  him  who  gave  you  life  and  the 
Shadow  of  Death  was  very  heavy  upon  you 
and  the  evil  well  nigh  impossible  not  to  fear; 

8 


114  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

and  your  adult  years  have  found  you  still  pon- 
dering that  Shadow  that  looms  ever  larger 
across  your  path,  filling  the  mind  with  a  great, 
dim,  solemn,  terrible  imagery,  amplifying  even 
the  imagery  of  Bunyan  with  worldless  pictures 
of  your  own ;  when  this  has  taken  place  within 
you,  to  see  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death 
depicted  on  the  stage  of  a  Broadway  theatre 
by  crudely  painted  pasteboard  and  gauze  cur- 
tains is  more  than  ridiculous  —  it  is  painful, 
it  is  torture.  And  you  marvel  at  the  mind 
which  could  have  conceived  such  a  thing,  even 
while  you  suffer. 

It  is  no  answer  that  stage  versions  of  "  The 
Pilgrim's  Progress  "  have  been  played  in  other 
lands  and  tongues.  It  is  no  answer  that  other 
masterpieces  of  literature  have  been  sliced  up 
for  stage  use.  One  act  of  vandalism  does  not 
excuse  another.  And  not  only  does  the  piece 
of  literature  vandalized  suffer,  but  in  the  long 
run  the  stage  suffers  too.  It  suffers  because 
it  invites  a  comparison  that  it  cannot  endure, 
because  it  falls  so  far  below  the  work  it  seeks 
to  copy  that  in  the  spectator  familiar  with  the 
original  a  certain  scorn  of  the  dramatic  me- 
dium is  unconsciously  bred.  Nothing,  of 
course,  could  be  more  unjust  to  the  stage, 
which  within  its  own  limits  is  invincibly  vivid 
and  compelling.  Its  failure  is  due  to  the  un- 
wise men  who  would  push  it  beyond  its  limits. 


BUNYAN  PERSECUTED   AGAIN        115 

In  such  a  case  as  the  one  immediately  under 
discussion  not  only  was  it  pushed  beyond  its 
limits  but  the  effort  to  make  a  play  out  of  "  The 
Pilgrim's  Progress  "  was  still  further  impeded 
by  a  complete  misconception  of  the  place  and 
power  of  theatrical  scenery.  Down  at  Dream- 
land, Coney  Island,  the  more  than  Miltonic  im- 
agery of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  is  shown  in 
stage  pictures.  For  a  quarter  you  can  see  chaos 
in  its  birth  throes;  you  can  see  the  dry  land 
emerge ;  finally  you  can  see  Adam  and  Eve  in 
pink  union  suits  listening  to  the  property  ca- 
naries and  preparing  to  raise  Cain.  It  reminds 
you  of  Wright  Lorimer's  alleged  remark  after 
he  had  produced  "  The  Shepherd  King." 
"  I  've  found,"  he  is  reported  to  have  said, 
"  lots  of  other  good  stuff  in  the  Bible  to  drama- 
tize." All  such  exhibitions  are  a  relic  of  the 
ancient  Miracle  and  Morality  plays  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages;  they  have  persisted  down  to  the 
present  time,  at  Coney  Island  and  similar 
places,  influenced  to  be  sure  by  electricity  and 
David  Belasco,  but  in  the  main  living  out  their 
lives  quite  apart  from  the  great  body  of  Eng- 
lish drama  to  which  they  once  gave  birth. 
Just  so,  schoolboys  in  America,  who  have  never 
heard  of  Professor  Child's  collection  of  Eng- 
lish and  Scottish  Ballads,  to  this  day  sing  to  a 
primitive  tune  a  certain  indecent  ballad  which 
was  probably  old  in  Chaucer's  time  and  which 


116  THE   AIVIERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

may  be  found  in  the  oral  literature  of  every 
European  people.  These  exhibitions,  for  all 
their  use  of  modern  scenery,  are  relics  of  the 
Middle  Ages;  they  are  popular  anachronisms, 
handed  down  from  a  primitive  day  and  bearing 
no  more  relation  to  the  drama  of  the  present 
than  "  Annie  Rooney  "  does  to  the  music  of 
Richard  Strauss. 

But  these  Miracle  and  Morality  plays  before 
they  rose  on  the  one  hand  into  English  drama 
and  sank  on  the  other  into  Coney  Island  side 
shows  achieved  a  certain  literary  distinction  of 
their  own,  a  certain  simple  power  and  pathos 
that  we  recently  saw  when  Miss  Matheson 
played  "  Everyman."  But  they  achieved  it  not 
by  elaborate  scenery  (which  indeed  was  then 
unknown),  but  by  beauty  of  speech  and  sin- 
cerity of  feeling.  The  great  images  of  Death 
and  the  Eternal,  the  allegorical  representations 
of  the  human  passions,  were  not  attempted  on 
a  grand  scale  that  should  vie  with  the  Eternal 
Himself,  but  quaintly  hinted  only,  and  the  be- 
holder was  left  to  fill  out  the  picture  from  his 
own  imagination  with  the  help  of  lovely  lan- 
guage. Death  in  "  Everyman  "  was  just  a  man 
with  a  drum,  a  skeleton  painted  in  his  gray 
clothes.  Yet  how  much  more  potent  was  he 
over  the  imagination  than,  say,  the  Beelzebub 
of  "  The  Christian  Pilgrim,"  with  his  property 
electric  lights,  his  illuminated  sword,  his  sur- 


BUNYAN   PERSECUTED  AGAIN        117 

rounding  backdrops  and  gauze  curtains  and  all 
the  rest  of  the  machinery.  Everyman  roamed 
through  the  world  on  a  bare  stage  —  and  the 
bare  stage  became  the  world.  Christian  jour- 
neyed the  steep  road  to  the  Celestial  City 
through  eleven  sets  of  elaborate  scenery  —  and 
they  were  just  eleven  sets  of  elaborate  scenery. 
Had  they  not  been  forced  to  challenge  compari- 
son with  the  incomparably  superior  and  vastly 
different  imagery  of  Bunyan,  had  they  but  rep- 
resented generalities  of  the  religious  imagina- 
tion instead  of  specific  scenes  from  a  great 
prose  poem,  they  would  still  have  been  only 
eleven  sets  of  scenery;  they  would  still  have 
failed  of  their  effect.  For  they  were  trying  to 
do  what  stage  scenery  cannot  do.  They  were 
trying  to  translate  images  that  dwell  on  the 
cloudy  heights  and  in  the  sky  spaces  of  the 
human  imagination  into  the  narrow,  realistic 
terms  of  the  theater.  Words  can  transllate 
sometimes  and  do  often  suggest  these  images. 
Music  can  float  them  out  on  its  harmonies. 
Blake  once  caught  them  and  painted  the  morn- 
ing stars  singing  together.  But  the  men  who 
paint  scenery  for  Henry  B.  Harris  and  Mau- 
rice Campbell  cannot  catch  them;  they  cannot 
be  reproduced  by  canvas  and  colored  lights 
in  a  Broadway  play-house.  At  Dreamland, 
Coney  Island,  "  A  Christian  Pilgrim  "  might 
very  well  vie  with  "  Creation  "  as  a  sample  of 


118  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

an  archaic  form  of  primitive  play  and  spectacle 
"  brought  up  to  date."  On  Broadway  as  a 
sample  of  the  developed  modern  drama  it  has 
little  place.  One  might  almost  lay  down  as  a 
law  that  the  growth  and  perfection  of  scenic 
illusion  in  the  theater  is  inseparable  from  the 
growth  and  perfection  of  realism  in  the  drama. 
Whenever  a  play  begins  to  float  away  from 
realism,  to  drift  into  the  mystic  regions  of 
poetry  and  romance,  of  the  supernatural  and 
the  allegorical,  the  fierce  light  of  disillusion 
begins  to  beat  upon  the  scenery.  And  when 
the  play  has  floated  clear  up  and  away  into 
those  regions  of  pure  imagination,  when  its 
scenes  have  been  transported  to  the  Valley  of 
the  Shadow  of  Death,  to  the  foot  of  the  Cross, 
to  the  City  Celestial,  words  alone,  and  they  but 
hardly,  may  avail  to  transport  the  beholder 
to  such  exalted  spots.  Here  the  hint  is  worth 
more  than  the  mechanic's  realization,  here  the 
spark  that  fires  the  train  of  suggestion  is  the 
only  effective  illumination. 

Perhaps  in  Miss  Crosman's  play  the  setting 
which  most  nearly  realized  Bunyan's  flavor 
and  imagery  was  that  for  The  House  Beau- 
tiful, which  had  a  certain  cleanly  brightness, 
a  sweet  sunny  simplicity,  even  if  Piety,  Charity 
and  Prudence  were  hardly  as  attractive  to  look 
upon  as  very  like  they  should  be,  though  per- 
sonal  pulchritude   has   never   been   a   quality 


BUNYAN    PERSECUTED   AGAIN        119 

supremely  associated  with  these  estimable  vir- 
tues. But  even  as  you  looked  upon  them  and 
upon  Christian  sitting  in  their  midst  and  heard 
snatches  of  that  high  talk  they  indulged  in  to- 
gether, even  as  you  beheld  the  property  goblets 
and  the  basket  of  fruit  which  you  were  curious 
to  test  for  its  reality,  the  memory  of  the  book 
came  over  you  and  everything  before  you  up 
there  on  the  stage  seemed  mockery  and  sham. 
After  all,  that  book  is  perfection,  you  thought. 
After  all,  it  does  in  its  own  way,  in  its  own 
medium,  something  supremely  great  in  a  su- 
premely great  manner.  After  all,  to  slice  it 
up  and  boil  it  down  and  toss  it  out  upon  the 
boards  is  wickedness  and  sacrilege.  And 
while  Miss  Crosman's  voice  droned  sing-song 
from  the  stage  and  the  sunlight  spluttered  and 
a  bit  of  the  canvas  stone  roof  of  the  house 
waved  in  a  draught  and  the  audience  coughed 
restlessly  these  were  the  words  that  your  inner 
ear  heard  like  a  solemn  accusation: 

''  Thus  they  discoursed  together  till  late  at 
night;  and  after  they  had  committed  them- 
selves to  their  Lord  for  protection,  they  betook 
themselves  to  rest:  the  Pilgrim  they  laid  in  a 
large  upper  chamber,  whose  windows  opened 
toward  the  sun-rising :  the  name  of  the  cham- 
ber was  Peace;  where  he  slept  till  break  of 
day,  and  then  he  awoke  and  sang." 


"THE   SERVANT  IN  THE   HOUSE'* 

(Savoy,  March  23,  1908) 

A  CAREFUL  consideration  of  all  the  ob- 
jections raised  to  "  The  Servant  in  the 
House "  by  Charles  Rann  Kennedy, 
inspires  the  reflection  that  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  people  regard  Mr.  Kennedy's  play  as  a 
descent  from  the  sublime  to  the  religious.  This 
is  important,  as  it  of  course  calls  for  a  redefini- 
tion, both  of  sublimity  and  religion.  For  that 
task  of  redefining,  however,  the  present  re- 
viewer feels  himself  in  all  humility  incapable. 
It  must  be  intrusted  rather  to  those  pregnant 
minds  who  have  made  it  necessary.  And,  great 
as  the  drawback  undoubtedly  is,  "  The  Servant 
in  the  House  "  must  needs  be  discussed  here 
under  those  conceptions  of  sublimity  and  reli- 
gion, with  their  attendant  qualities,  which  poor, 
mistaken  humanity  has  so  long  accepted  in  the- 
ory and  painfully  striven  for  in  practice.  We 
woukl  gladly  rewrite  even  the  Gospels  if  we 
could,  realizing  with  one  commentator,  that 
a  mere  restatement  of  them  can  contain  noth- 
ing new,  that  it  is  inevitably  "  trite."  But  our 
flowerless  prose,  our  lack  of  his  sonorous  rhet- 


"THE   SERVANT   IN   THE   HOUSE"     121 

oric,  is  alone  a  sufficient  deterrent.    We  must 
humbly  pass  on  the  job. 

Is  there  no  spot  to  be  saved  for  any  earnest 
reality  except  ''  the  poor  little  enclosure  behind 
the  altar  rail  "  ?  Mr.  Kennedy's  play,  which 
is  truly  a  modern  Morality,  not  a  sermon  nor 
a  tract,  but  a  statement  of  applied  or  ethical 
religion  in  terms  of  the  drama,  a  play  with  its 
own  dramatic  appeal  and  human  significance, 
attempts  to  say  that  a  spot  shall  be  saved,  and 
that  spot  —  the  stage.  Jesters  have  risen  up 
to  smite  this  daring  author;  his  restatements 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  are  characterized 
by  one  as  "  the  most  obvious  and  irreproach- 
able platitudes  that  mental  mediocrity  could 
devise  or  stodgy  dulness  admire,  concerning 
morality  and  the  brotherhood  of  mankind." 
Another  suggests,  of  the  Servant,  that  *'  this 
impressive  figure,  clothed  in  its  mysticism, 
scarcely  lent  itself  to  the  job  of  passing  around 
the  toast."  If  any  argument  were  really 
needed  in  justification  of  the  play,  which  is 
amply  justified  by  its  sheer  dramatic  appeal, 
this  last  sentiment  quoted  would  furnish  it. 
If,  after  nineteen  hundred  years,  the  message 
of  the  Gospels  is  so  misunderstood  that  a  critic 
of  whatever  race  or  creed  can  miss  entirely 
this  symbolism  of  service,  then  all  his  and 
everybody's  else  contentions  that  "  The  Ser- 
vant in  the  House  "  is  needless  because  it  is 


122  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

"  trite,"  because  it  states  "  nothing  new,"  fall 
in  a  heap,  self-refuted. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  not  to  mince  matters, 
not  in  the  face  of  anything  so  sincere  as  this 
play  to  be  guilty  of  insincerity  and  half  truths, 
the  objections  to  "  The  Servant  in  the  House  " 
disguise  themselves  as  they  may  under  chatter 
of  art  for  art's  sake,  or  the  thrice  tiresome  and 
fundamentally  meaningless  assertion  that  "  the 
mission  of  the  stage  is  not  to  preach,"  are  in 
reality  based  on  ethical  unresponsiveness,  on 
that  shallow  and  cowardly  fear  of  the  serious, 
the  deep,  the  truth-seeking,  which  character- 
izes minds  suspicious  of  moral  passion  or 
dulled  by  the  material  environment,  the  cares 
and  the  pleasures  of  a  daily  life  bounded  by  a 
narrow  horizon.  It  was  against  this  unre- 
sponsiveness, this  fear,  that  "  The  Servant  in 
the  House  "  had  to  fight  for  its  stage  life,  and 
it  is  to  the  credit  of  New  York  theatergoers 
that  the  victory  was  signal.  The  discussion 
which  waged  about  the  play  was  in  itself  "  a 
sort  of  a  compliment,"  as  Smee  would  say  in 
**  Peter  Pan,"  and  it  was  the  means  of  bring- 
ing the  work  widely  before  the  public,  drawing 
to  the  theater  the  curious,  who  in  most  cases 
remained  as  converts.  That  much  of  history 
may  be  allowed,  however  inter  jaculatory. 
"  The  effect  of  any  writing  on  the  public 
mind,"    says    Emerson,    "  is    mathematically 


"THE   SERVANT   IN   THE   HOUSE"     123 

measured  by  its  depth  of  thought.  How  much 
water  does  it  draw?  If  it  awaken  you  to 
think,  if  it  Hft  you  from  your  feet  with  the 
great  voice  of  eloquence,  then  the  effect  is  to 
be  wide,  slow,  permanent,  over  the  minds  of 
men;  if  the  pages  instruct  you  not,  they  will 
die  like  flies  in  the  hour."  It  is  a  sad  reflection 
that  plays  which  do  instruct,  however,  are  the 
plays  too  apt  to  perish  in  the  hour.  Therefore 
to  record  the  success  of  "  The  Servant  in  the 
House,"  not  between  covers  but  in  the  theater, 
is  important. 

The  austere  lofty  soul  of  James  Martineau 
has  passed  full  orbed  into  the  spirit  land.  His 
words  live,  nor  do  we  fear  to  be  "  trite  "  in 
repeating  them.  In  the  middle  of  the  last  cen- 
tury he  wrote,  "  Our  current  notions  of  be- 
nevolence have  descended  to  us  from  the  recent 
times  of  feudalism;  yet  we  are  conscious  that 
they  do  not  come  up  to  the  higher  demands 
which  have  arisen,  or  adapt  themselves  to  the 
new  intellectual  and  moral  wants  comprised 
in  any  Christian  estimate  of  the  poor  in  this 
world.  The  ease  of  ancient  condescension  is 
gone;  the  grateful  recognition  of  human 
brotherhood  is  not  attained.  To  aim  at  mak- 
ing men  like  ourselves  into  creatures  with 
enough  to  eat  —  though  a  thing  unrealized  as 
yet  —  is  felt  to  be  insufficient,  and  how  to  raise 
them  into  the  likeness  of  the  children  of  God 


124  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

we  cannot  tell  —  the  very  notion  receiving  at 
present  but  a  timid  acknowledgment." 

And  does  anybody  fancy  that  this  "  grate- 
ful recognition  of  human  brotherhood  "  has 
been  made  in  the  brief  half  century  since  the 
sermon  on  "Winter  Worship"  was  written? 
Does  any  one  fancy  that  the  notion  of  raising 
our  brothers  into  "  the  likeness  of  God "  is 
much  more  boldly  acknowledged  to-day?  Go 
to  the  Rev.  Percy  Grant's  Sunday  evening 
Socialistic  debates  and  you  will  hear  speaker 
after  speaker  affirm  that  the  Bread  Line  has 
no  soul,  only  a  belly.  And  those  speakers  are 
not  the  sentimental  philanthropists,  who  are 
shocked  by  the  sentiment,  but  the  men  from 
the  East  Side,  the  young  Socialists,  who  have 
invaded  this  Fifth  Avenue  church  burning  with 
reality  and  confronted  by  conditions.  The 
mere  task  of  making  their  brothers  into  "  crea- 
tures with  enough  to  eat "  is  all  they  can 
grapple;  it  absolutely  limits  their  horizon. 
"  The  Bread  Line  itself  may  not  be  divine,  but 
the  men  in  it  are,"  said  a  speaker  in  refutation. 
And  came  a  woman's  voice,  "  Is  it  the  diviner 
the  longer  it  is?  " 

The  speaker  had  no  answer.  Have  you, 
you  who  object  to  "The  Servant  in  the  House" 
because  of  its  "  platitudes "  about  human 
brotherhood,  because  there  is  "  nothing  new  " 
in  it,  because  in  your  busy  life  you  have  not 


"THE   SERVANT   IN   THE   HOUSE"     125 

waked  to  wonder  "  and  who  is  my  brother  ?  " 
to  contrast  your  professions  with  your  prac- 
tice, your  faith  with  your  works,  and  resent  in 
the  theater  any  play  which  sounds  an  alarm 
bell  to  your  sleepy  conscience  —  have  you  any 
answer?  You  object  to  "The  Servant  in  the 
House,"  perhaps,  because  *'  it  does  not  prove 
anything  "  ?  As  if  any  play  ever  proved  any- 
thing! As  if  any  play  could  prove  anything 
about  a  problem  that  all  over  the  world  real 
men  have  wrestled  with  and  are  wrestling  with 
and  will  wrestle  with  so  long  as  the  human 
spirit  struggles  upward  through  every  chang- 
ing cycle  of  civilization,  which  ever  needs  not 
proofs  but  inspirations,  the  inspiration  of  such 
plays  as  "  The  Servant  in  the  House  "  no  less 
than  others!  Let  us  bid  this  Servant  set  our 
house  in  order,  too;  let  us  clean  out  the 
drains,  let  us  have  done  with  cant  and  hypoc- 
risy and  at  least  acknowledge  that  if  the  play 
does  not  thrill  and  move  us,  seems  stupid,  tire- 
some, that  is  perhaps  because  our  hearts  do  not 
answer  to  the  call  of  our  brothers,  whatever 
our  heads  may  do,  because  our  emotions  are 
not  fired  by  the  ethical  purposes  of  the  world, 
because  we  do  not  care  or  do  not  dare,  not  to 
apply,  but  merely  to  see  applied,  the  simple 
test  of  Christian  conduct  — "  How  would 
Christ  have  acted  here?" 

For,  after  all,  if  Christianity  has  survived 


126   THE   AJVIERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

its  many  colored  shells  of  creeds  and  dogmas, 
if  it  has  spread  beyond  churches  and  profes- 
sions of  faith,  that  simple  test  of  conduct  has 
been  the  persistent  element  that  could  not  be 
lost.  Unitarians  and  Liberal  Jews  and  Social- 
ists, men  who  enter  no  church  portals  and  the 
robed  priest  before  the  high  altar  and  the 
Cross,  can  apply  it.  It  asks  for  no  faith  save 
faith  in  the  best  instincts  of  the  human  heart. 
And  Mr.  Kennedy  in  his  play  evokes  no  dog- 
mas; rather  does  he  bury  them  in  that  drain 
below  the  church.  He  holds  no  brief  for  any 
theology,  he  neither  offends  nor  flatters  any 
sect.  Because  religion  in  his  play  is  not  per- 
sonal but  humanitarian,  not  a  matter  of  indi- 
vidual "  conversion,"  but  ethical  passion,  the 
gospel  of  Brotherhood,  he  avoids  the  unreality 
for  the  modern  mind  of  Mr.  Jones's  "  Evange- 
list." He  merely  evokes  the  spirit  and  the  hu- 
manity of  the  historic  Christ,  giving  Him 
bodily  form,  as  he  needs  must  do  for  purposes 
of  his  allegory,  and  lets  us  see  how,  as  he  sup- 
poses, the  Christ  would  work  out  the  problems 
of  a  concrete  household,  how  the  Christ  spirit 
would  differ  from  and  put  to  shame  the  life 
of  to-day.  It  was  a  bold  attempt  and  only  to 
be  justified  by  a  fine  achievement.  But  the 
achievement  is  fine.  Through  the  devious 
ways  of  modern  dramatic  technique  Mr.  Ken- 
nedy has  reached  the  simplicity  of  a  Morality 


"THE   SERVANT   IN   THE   HOUSE"     127 

play  and  speaks  to  his  generation  of  higher 
things  in  a  voice  that  his  generation  can  yet 
understand. 

And  does  his  MoraHty  mean  sociaHsm? 
Or  does  it  mean  that  he  would  tear  down  all 
the  churches  that  are  built  over  the  drains  and 
moldering  cesspools  of  lies  and  deceit?  The 
Drain  Man  grasps  hands  with  the  Servant 
when  he  learns  the  latter  is  a  socialist,  crying 
"  That 's  what  I  am,  too!  "  But  his  socialism, 
to  the  larger  view  of  the  Servant,  is  a  belief  in 
"  fighting  with  his  class  against  all  the  other 
classes."  With  a  quiet,  kindly,  almost  amused 
gesture  the  Servant  banishes  such  socialism, 
the  kind  the  legislatures  might  decree,  but  how 
far  from  the  sort  He  means!  The  Morality 
is  indeed  thus  almost  a  rebuke  of  the  social- 
ism now  rampant  in  print  and  on  platform; 
it  goes  deeper  than  that.  Socialism  for  Him 
means  something  voluntary,  a  distinction  that 
is  surely  just  now  hardly  over  insisted  on. 
The  socialists  themselves  are  the  ones  most 
likely  to  object  to  the  drift  of  Mr.  Kennedy's 
drama  here. 

And  as  for  his  scathing  satire  on  conven- 
tional religion,  his  bitter  smelling  allegory  of 
the  church  built  over  a  festering  tomb  only 
to  be  cleaned  up  by  a  common  laborer,  proud 
of  his  station,  and  a  vicar  who  throws  away 
his  cassock,  doubtless  Mr.   Kennedy  will  be 


128   THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

glad  to  let  you  think  what  you  like.  Martin- 
eau  (still  to  test  this  play  by  the  loftiest  stand- 
ards) said  from  his  pulpit  that  our  worship 
"  has  become  a  commemoration,  telling  what 
once  He  was  to  happier  spirits  of  our  race, 
and  how  grateful  we  are  for  the  dear  old  mes- 
sages that  faintly  reach  our  ear,  how  we  will 
cherish  the  last  remnant  of  that  precious  and 
only  sure  memorial  —  the  fragile  and  conse- 
crated link  between  His  sphere  and  ours.  .  .  . 
Or,  if  we  direct  our  face  the  other  way  .  .  . 
we  fall  into  the  insincerity  of  coming  before 
God  by  way  of  keeping  ourselves  in  practice 
and  turning  our  religion  into  a  rcJiearsal."  In 
other  words,  our  religion  is  not  a  thing  of  here 
and  now,  but  ever  of  the  future  or  the  past. 
That  is  all  these  dead  bodies  beneath  the 
church  in  the  play  need  to  mean. 

But  if  you  are  a  man  saddened  by  the  sight 
of  churches  filled  Sunday  after  Sunday  with 
old  women  and  little  girls,  if  you  are  a  man 
wearied  by  pulpit  discourses  that  do  not  meet 
your  needs  or  that  even  violate  your  reason 
and  experience,  if  the  bickerings  of  sects,  the 
claims  and  counter-claims  of  creeds  and  dog- 
mas disgust  you,  Mr.  Kennedy  will  not  much 
care  if  you  meet  his  allegory  more  than  half 
way,  and  start  tearing  down  flying  buttresses. 
For  in  one  of  the  most  eloquently  written 
speeches  of  the  play,  and  a  speech  eloquently 


"THE    SERVANT   IN   THE    HOUSE"     129 

delivered  by  Walter  Hampden  as  the  Servant, 
with  beauty  of  voice,  nobility  and  dignity  of 
utterance  and  a  sincerity  that  stamped  him  as 
an  artist  and  a  man  of  feeling,  Mr.  Kennedy 
builds  another  church,  the  Church  Universal, 
where  all  may  worship  together. 

The  pillars  of  it  go  up  like  the  brawny  trunks  of 
heroes,  the  sweet  human  flesh  of  men  and  women  is 
moulded  about  its  bulwarks,  strong,  impregnable; 
the  faces  of  little  children  laugh  out  from  every 
corner-stone ;  the  terrible  spans  and  arches  of  it  are 
the  joined  hands  of  comrades,  and  up  in  the  heights 
and  spaces  there  are  inscribed  the  numberless  mus- 
ings of  all  the  dreamers  of  the  world.  It  is  yet 
building  —  building  and  built  upon.  Sometimes, 
the  work  goes  forward  in  deep  darkness,  sometimes 
in  blinding  light;  now  beneath  the  burden  of  un- 
utterable anguish,  now  to  the  tune  of  a  great  laugh- 
ter and  heroic  shoutings  like  the  cry  of  thunder. 
Sometimes,  in  the  silence  of  the  night  time,  one  may 
hear  the  tiny  hammerings  of  the  comrades  at  work 
up  in  the  dome  —  the  comrades  that  have  climbed 
ahead. 

"  The  numberless  musings  of  all  the  dream- 
ers of  the  world !  "  One  of  these  dreamers  is 
Mr.  Kennedy ;  one  of  these  musings  is  "  The 
Servant  in  the  House."  The  Celtic  imagina- 
tion of  Walter  Hampden  —  for  he  bears  in 
reality  a  Celtic  name,  if  his  home  is  Brooklyn 
and  his  training  English  —  played  with  the 
dream  and  loved  it  and  made  it  very  real  and 

9 


130   THE  AMERICAN   STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

very  reverent  and  deep  and  sweet.  He  was 
aided  by  a  company,  especially  by  Tyrone 
Power,  who  caught  the  fire  of  its  purpose  and 
knew  how  to  utter  it  in  terms  of  human  feel- 
ing, who  could  win  tears  for  a  father's  grief 
or  a  daughter's  longing  as  well  as  point  the 
allegory.  So  the  play  delivered  its  message 
at  the  Savoy  Theater,  in  Thirty-fourth  Street, 
just  ofif  Broadway.  It  is  not  flippantly  to  be 
dismissed;  it  is  not  lightly  to  be  discussed; 
it  is  not  to  be  discussed  at  all  in  the  set  terms 
of  criticism,  for  this  or  that  flaw  in  technique 
or  construction,  this  or  that  failure  to  measure 
up  to  rule,  sink  to  insignificance  before  the 
fact  that  it  dreams  a  dream,  that  it  hears  those 
hammers  tapping  up  in  the  dome,  that  it  speaks 
a  message  of  which  the  conventional  drama 
knows  nothing,  a  message  to  the  spiritual 
longings  of  men.  How  strange  that  we  should 
be  talking  so  of  a  drama  on  our  Alley,  our  gay, 
irresponsible,  frivolous  Alley,  with  its  merry 
widows  and  the  rest!  How  strange  that  we 
should  have  the  chance,  perhaps  even  the  in- 
clination !  We  rub  our  eyes,  yet  still  we  find 
ourself  awake,  and  still  the  fact  persists  that 
"  The  Servant  in  the  House  "  was  visible  at 
the  Savoy  Theater,  in  Thirty-fourth  Street, 
just  off  Broadway,  to  speak  to  us  if  we 
would  but  listen,  to  win  our  tears,  to  shame 
our  petty  prides  and  selfish  aims,  in  the  city's 


"THE  SERVANT   IN   THE   HOUSE"     131 

dust  and  din  and  fearful  complexities  of  choice 
and  conduct,  to  hint  a  simple  standard  as 
the  one  solution,  and  to  breathe  on  some  of 
us  again  perhaps  "  the  silence  of  immortal 
hopes." 


HARPS   IN  THE  AIR 

(Bijou,  September  23,  1907) 

As  pen  and  ink  alike  serve  him  who  sings 

In  high  or  low  or  intermediate  style; 

As  the  same  stone  hath  shapes  both  rich  and  vile 

To  match  the  fancies  that  each  master  brings; 
So,  my  loved  lord,  within  thy  bosom  springs 

Pride  mixed  with  meekness  and  kind  thoughts  that  smile: 

Whence  I  draw  naught,  my  sad  self  to  beguile. 

But  what  my  face  shows —  dark  imaginings. 
He  who  for  seed  sows  sorrow,  tears,  and  sighs, 

(The  dews  that  fall  from  heaven,  though  pure  and  clear, 

From  different  germs  take  divers  qualities) 
Must  needs  reap  grief  and  garner  weeping  eyes; 

And  he  who  looks  on  beauty  with  sad  cheer 

Gains  doubtful  hope  and  certain  miseries. 

Michael  Angelo,  Master  Builder. 

HENRIK  IBSEN  is  one  of  the  most 
popular  playwrights  in  America  to- 
day, a  statement  which  may  sur- 
prise some  people.  Scorned,  abused,  heaped 
with  vile  epithets  alike  in  England  and  the 
United  States  when  his  works  first  began  to 
be  translated,  so  that  William  Winter's  re- 
views of  "  Ghosts  "  were  in  far  greater  need 
of  expurgation  than  the  drama  could  be,  Ibsen 
has   now   come   into   his   own.      His   printed 


HARPS   IN   THE   AIR  133 

plays  are  among  the  books  most  in  demand 
in  the  New  York  pubHc  Hbraries,  they  are 
sold  in  great  numbers  at  the  book  shops, 
they  are  a  part  of  all  collegiate  courses  in 
the  drama.  Mrs.  Fiske  has  played  "  A 
Doll's  House,"  "  Hedda  Gabler  "  and  "  Ros- 
mersholm,"  the  last  for  the  entire  season  of 
1907-8.  Mary  Shaw  has  played  "  Ghosts  " 
from  coast  to  coast,  with  great  success.  Ethel 
Barrymore  has  played  "  A  Doll's  House " ; 
that  drama,  indeed,  figures  almost  every  week 
in  the  program  of  some  stock  company  through 
the  country.  Wright  Lorimer  has  played  "  A 
Wild  Duck."  Richard  Mansfield's  last  season 
was  given  over  to  a  production  of  "  Peer 
Gynt."  Even  "When  We  Dead  Awaken" 
has  been  tried  in  New  York  in  the  commercial 
theater.  Of  "  special  performances  "  of  vari- 
ous of  his  plays  there  have  been  many,  and 
during  the  past  two  seasons  a  new  Ibsen  inter- 
preter has  been  added  to  our  stage  in  the 
panther-like  person  of  Alia  Nazimova,  a  Rus- 
sian Jewess  who  came  to  America  to  play  in 
Russian  and  remained  to  learn  our  language 
and  conquer  our  native  public. 

The  one  she  has  accomplished  well  enough; 
the  other  completely.  Her  Hedda  Gabler  was 
a  high-born  exotic,  an  orchid  of  a  woman,  bale- 
ful, fascinating  —  and  to  some  of  us  not  at  all 
like  Ibsen's  heroine.    But  it  attracted  the  pub- 


134    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OP  TO-DAY 

lie.  Her  Nora  in  "  A  Doll's  House  "  was  quite 
different.  The  actress  even  looked  different. 
She  had  shrunk  physically.  She  had  shed  ten 
years  of  her  life.  She  was  a  nibbling  little 
squirrel  of  a  woman,  who  nosed  into  surrep- 
titious candy  bags,  romped  on  the  floor  with 
her  children,  made  physical  love  to  her  hus- 
band with  absolute  animal  innocence.  Nazi- 
mova  was  more  than  ever  hailed  by  the  public. 
Her  continental  love  for  showing  off  the  arts 
of  impersonation,  her  facile  and  effective 
handling  of  the  whole  pack  of  actor's  tricks, 
delighted  even  those  who  did  not  find  much 
sincerity  behind  her  marvelous  technique  — 
who  felt,  for  instance,  that  her  Nora  in  the 
third  act  quite  lacked  the  real  suggestion  of 
intellectual  awakening,  something  which  mere 
technique  cannot  give,  and  which  Mrs.  Fiske 
made  so  thrilling.  Those  who  did  not  feel  this 
lack  hailed  her  as  the  greatest  actress  since 
Duse.  It  was  partly,  no  doubt,  this  personal 
popularity  of  the  dark,  sensuously  fascinating 
Russian,  this  "  tiger  cat  in  the  leash  of  art," 
won  in  the  brief  space  of  a  year,  that  enabled 
her  to  put  on  "  The  Master  Builder  "  at  the 
Bijou  Theater,  New  York,  September  23, 
1907,  and  to  keep  it  on  for  almost  two  months, 
a  remarkable  run  for  this  most  baffling  and 
subtle  of  all  the  grim  old  Norseman's  plays. 
Excellently  supported  by  Walter  Hampden  in 


HARPS   IN   THE   AIR  135 

the  title  part,  she  flung  down  this  pearl  of 
symbolism  before  —  well,  before  any  chance 
Broadway  audience  that  cared  to  come.  And 
though  some  critics  raged  and  some  theater- 
goers scoffed,  she  demonstrated  what  a  con- 
siderable public  there  is,  after  all,  for  the  more 
subtle  things  of  art  and  she  showed  us  what  a 
vast  field  of  poetry,  symbolism,  suggestion, 
still  lies  untrodden  by  our  native  actors  and 
authors. 

It  was  not  until  1906,  when  their  corre- 
spondence was  published,  that  the  world  knew 
of  the  romance  —  if  romance  it  can  be  called 
—  between  Ibsen  and  eighteen-year-old  Emilie 
Bardach  of  Vienna,  which  began  and  appar- 
ently ended  at  Gossensass  in  the  summer  of 
1889.  Ibsen  was  sixty-one.  Autumn  lured 
Spring,  or  at  any  rate  was  profoundly  dis- 
quieted by  Spring;  also  interested  in  Spring 
as  copy !  That  Spring  loved  Autumn,  Autumn 
at  least  believed.  Edmund  Gosse  records  that 
Ibsen  said  at  this  time,  "  Oh,  you  can  always 
love,  but  I  am  happier  than  the  happiest,  for 
I  am  beloved."  On  his  seventieth  birthday 
he  wrote  to  his  "  princess,"  "  That  summer 
at  Gossensass  was  the  most  beautiful  and  the 
most  harmonious  portion  of  my  whole  exist- 
ence. I  scarcely  venture  to  think  of  it,  and 
yet  I  think  of  nothing  else.  Ah !  forever !  " 
And  Ibsen,  being  an  artist,  made  copy  of  the 


136   THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

episode;  he  made  "The  Master  Builder." 
Grim  old  Norwegian,  whiskered  prober  of 
social  sores,  merciless  technician,  iconoclast, 
individualist,  he  was  a  Sentimental  Tommy  to 
the  end !  And  just  because  he  was  a  Sentimen- 
tal Tommy  none  can  ever  say  how  much  of 
"  The  Master  Builder  "  is  autobiography,  how 
much  is  not.  Perhaps  he  himself  could  not 
have  told,  if  he  w'ould.  Only  we  know  that  it 
had  its  base  on  fact,  on  the  experiences  of  one 
of  the  world's  great  artists  in  his  sixty-first 
year  with  a  young  girl  of  eighteen.  It  cannot 
be  ignored  as  fantastic,  then,  as  silly,  as  mean- 
ingless. Rather  must  we  admit,  if  we  do  not 
comprehend  it,  that  our  souls  are  too  small, 
our  natures  too  lacking  in  complexity.  It 
faces  us  as  one  of  the  most  fascinating,  if  one 
of  the  most  baffling  works  in  modern  litera- 
ture. 

Those  tiresome  people  who  are  forever 
telling  you  that  a  successful  drama  must  tell 
its  story  by  means  of  "  action  "  forget  —  or, 
rather,  they  never  knew  —  that  the  sight  of  a 
man  whose  mere  life  is  at  stake  at  the  point 
of  a  pistol  is  infinitely  less  interesting,  dra- 
matic, important  than  the  sight  of  a  man  whose 
soul  is  at  stake  at  the  point  of  another's  ideas 
and  inspiration.  Such  people  have  no  place 
at  "The  Master  Builder."  In  front  of  this 
surcharged,    half-mystic    drama,    where    men 


HARPS  IN   THE   AIR  137 

and  women  sit  and  talk  while  thrilling  events 
come  to  birth  and  fruition  in  their  souls,  your 
ordinary  theatergoer  looking  for  his  "  story  " 
halts.  And  ordinary  criticism  halts,  too. 
There  is  a  time  when  the  critic  must  adventure 
on  his  own  way  and  report  alone  his  own  im- 
pressions. The  best  he  can  hope  is  that  he 
may  persuade  others  to  adventure  where  he 
has  gone,  with  the  seeing  eye  and  the  under- 
standing heart;  the  worst,  that  he  may  be 
considered  fantastic,  perhaps  by  that  writer 
of  popular  fiction  in  the  audience  at  Nazi- 
mova's  first  night  who  said  that  he  did  n't 
know  what  the  play  meant,  and  if  he  did  he 
would  n't  admit  it.  First  and  foremost,  then, 
what  is  it  in  this  drama,  inherent  in  its  very 
structure,  oozing  through  its  dialogue,  which 
renders  the  common  cants  of  criticism  vain, 
making  the  commentaries  of  William  Archer 
or  Brandes  or  the  rest  alike  unsatisfactory? 
These  men  tell  what  the  play  is  about,  what  it 
means  (no  one  of  them  agreeing  with  any 
other!),  but  they  do  not  get  the  secret  of  its 
haunting  thrill  into  words. 

Leaving  the  technique  of  Scribe  forever  be- 
hind him  with  the  tarentella  dance  in  Act  II 
of  "  A  Doll's  House,"  Ibsen  struck  out  into 
new  waters.  From  then  on  his  dramas  were 
dramas  of  mental  states,  his  theater  the  brain, 
and  his  technique  boiled  away  all  quid  pro  quo, 


138   THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

all  the  tricks  and  artifices  of  the  "  well  made 
play,"  became  so  subtly  simple  that  it  seems 
utterly  artless.  Everything  happens  because 
that  is  the  sort  of  people  the  characters 
were,  the  plays  are  written  by  the  finger  of 
fate.  The  result  was  comprehensible  to  any- 
body in  "  Hedda  Gabler  "  and  "  Ghosts."  But 
in  "  The  Master  Builder  "  a  new  element  ap- 
pears, and  remains  to  the  end  in  "  When  We 
Dead  Awaken." 

And  it  is  this  new  element  that  makes  the 
play  so  hauntingly  strange  and  baffling.  Mse- 
terhnck  has  named  it  "  secondary  dialogue." 
Over  and  above  what  the  characters  say,  run- 
ning along  between  the  lines,  cropping  out  now 
and  again  in  touches  of  symbolic  speech,  is  a 
conversation  between  their  souls.  And  in  this 
is  the  real  drama,  in  this  mystic  region  as  far 
from  the  ordinary  world  of  the  theater  as  it 
is  close  to  the  world  you  and  I,  in  our  deepest 
moments  of  intercourse  with  those  we  love, 
know  to  be  our  ultimate  reality.  What  words 
can  represent  it?  Can  you  put  into  language 
the  secret  influences  that  come  to  you  from 
the  heart  of  the  one  you  love,  the  not-to-be-re- 
sisted power  of  your  own  ideals,  the  voices  that 
seem  to  urge  you  from  the  air?  You  try  in 
vain  to  recall  a  forgotten  name,  yet  one  day  it 
comes  walking  unsought  into  your  mind  from 
out  that  great,  dim  marginal  field  of  conscious- 


HARPS   IN   THE   AIR  139 

ness  which  modern  psychology  is  beginning 
to  teach  us  is  the  source  even  of  our  rehgion. 
And  how  much  of  our  converse  with  those 
nearest  and  dearest  does  this  same  dim  part 
of  the  brain  supply,  itself  supplied,  perhaps, 
by  some  unguessed  telepathy,  so  that  a  mere 
report  of  the  words  that  passed  between  us  — 
poor  commonplaces  of  daily  speech  —  would 
be  pitifully  inadequate  even  to  hint  at  the  depth 
and  meaning  of  our  relations !  Such  soul  speech 
there  is  between  Hilda  and  Solness,  plainly 
baffling  to  the  other  characters  on  the  stage. 
(Alas!  baffiing  too,  perhaps,  to  how  many  in 
the  audience?)  That  is  what  Hilda  meant 
when  she  cried  out  that  she  knew  the  Master 
Builder  better  than  the  rest  of  them.  That  is 
why  again  and  again  during  the  performance 
of  the  play  I  myself  and  others  I  have  talked 
with  actually  forgot  to  listen  to  the  words 
passing  on  the  stage,  fascinated  by  the  curi- 
ous sensation  that  currents  of  influence  and 
understanding  were  leaping  from  this  man  to 
this  girl  and  back  again,  tense  and  exciting, 
like  sparks  between  the  knobs  of  an  induction 
coil. 

It  remained  for  Ibsen  to  suggest  this  super- 
speech  in  the  drama,  to  win  a  technique  clair- 
voyant and  subtle  enough  to  carry  it.  "  The 
Master  Builder  "  is  a  play  of  the  subconscious 
elements  of  man.    That  is  why  you  cannot  get 


UO   THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

its  strange  thrill  into  words ;  that  is  why  your 
own  subconsciousness  jumps  out  to  meet  it; 
that  is  why,  perhaps,  there  is  so  much  doubt 
as  to  its  more  external  meanings.  And  that 
is  why  you  are  told  by  numerous  commonplace, 
unimaginative  people  that  it  is  no  drama  at 
all.  But  drama  it  is,  of  a  new  and  strange  and 
wonderful  sort.  And  whether  you  take  its 
externals  to  picture,  in  Archer's  words,  "  the 
history  of  a  sickly  conscience  side  by  side  with 
a  robust  conscience  " ;  or,  with  Lugne-Poe,  con- 
sider it  ''  an  heroic  drama  of  pride  " ;  or  be- 
lieve it  to  mean  that  Hilda  as  the  spirit  of  the 
new  generation  created  the  Master  Builder's 
soul  anew,  so  that  he  once  more  stood  on  the 
heights;  or  believe  it  to  mean  that  no  man's 
soul  can  be  created  anew,  so  that  he  fell  to 
death  when  he  tried  to  stand  a  second  time  on 
the  heights ;  or  conceive  it  as  the  tragedy  of  a 
great  artist,  who  must  ever  love  anew  for  in- 
spiration :  whether  you  accept  one  or  all  of 
these  interpretations  does  not  matter  much 
after  all.  What  matters  is  the  mere  presence 
of  this  soul  speech  between  the  brooding  Mas- 
ter Builder,  who  defies  our  ultimate  analysis, 
and  Hilda,  of  whom  he  says :  "  You  are  like 
a  dawning  day.  When  I  look  at  you  I  seem 
to  be  looking  toward  the  sunrise." 

Solness,  the  Builder,  is  in  reality  the  chief 
figure  in  the  drama.     But  with  Nazimova  as 


HARPS   IN   THE   AIR  141 

Hilda  naturally  the  interest  centered  in  seeing 
what  this  remarkable  Russian  would  do  as  a 
dawning-  day.  And  what  she  did  was  at  times 
marvelous  in  its  minute  fidelity  to  the  surface 
of  life  and  its  haunting  suggestion  of  the  depths 
below  the  surface.  It  was  a  new  Nazimova 
who  entered,  alpenstock  in  hand,  a  very  girl,  it 
seemed.  The  contrast  with  her  languid,  tall, 
full-blown  Hedda  was  remarkable.  She  was 
short,  slight,  and  in  every  line  and  gesture 
unmistakably,  buoyantly  girlish.  Different 
clothes,  a  different  hat,  the  hair  done  differ- 
ently? Yes,  but  the  secret  was  not  there. 
Rather  it  lay  in  her  so  vivid  imagination  that  in 
some  mysterious  way  the  part  she  was  playing 
wrote  itself  out  upon  her  form  and  features. 
There  was  thought  and  plan  and  study  behind 
that  first  awkward  handshake  so  typical  of  a 
young  girl  from  the  country,  and  in  the  position 
of  her  feet  as  she  stood  against  the  wall,  and  in 
her  free  hop  upon  the  bookkeeper's  stool,  or 
her  manner  of  plumping  down  into  a  chair  or 
on  the  floor;  but  it  was  study  guided  and 
made  utterly  spontaneous  by  her  unerring 
imagination. 

Which,  of  course,  is  not  to  say  that  there 
do  not  exist  deeper  or  shallower  conceptions 
of  what  the  life  of  a  part  is.  And  this  life 
Nazimova  was  to  live  as  Hilda  contained  depths 
she  did  not  sound.    At  her  first  entrance  like  a 


142  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

spring  wind,  you  knew  that  the  "  younger  gen- 
eration "  had  come  pounding  at  the  door,  that 
there  was  new  breath  of  inspiration,  that  some- 
thing was  going  to  happen  to  Sobicss.  But 
her  second  act  palpably  fell  off,  partly  because 
the  unexpectedly  fine  and  intelligent  perform- 
ance of  Soilless  by  Walter  Hampden  grew  a 
little  monotonous  under  the  strain  —  the  part 
is  a  veritable  Hamlet  in  length  and  its  demands 
are  tremendous  —  and  partly  because  she  her- 
self was  a  little  lost  in  playing  this  game  for  a 
man's  soul  where  the  lure  had  nothing  of  the 
physical.  For  the  sexual  allurement  of  Hilda, 
except  in  a  smothered,  unconscious  way,  is  not 
exercised  till  that  strange  love  scene  just  before 
the  final  curtain ;  her  allurement  is  all  of  "  the 
sunrise  and  the  dawning  day  " ;  she  came  to 
put  new  wine  of  effort  into  the  Master  Builder's 
veins  by  her  free,  fearless  faith  in  him,  her  per- 
fect understanding,  and  her  influence  was  not 
of  the  body,  it  was  of  the  ideal,  the  aged  artist's 
rediscovered  dream  of  the  ideal,  Solness  not  be- 
ing the  first  great  artist  whose  need  was  always 
to  find  it  in  a  woman.  Subdue  her  sexual  al- 
lurement as  she  would,  Nazimova  could  not 
quite  vitalize  steadily  and  firmly  this  feature  of 
the  character.  But  she  rose  in  the  final  act  to 
put  forth  the  sex  appeal  at  last  with  poignant 
eloquence,  to  claim  her  own.  And  her  achieve- 
ment of  so  much  of  the  "  secondary  dialogue  " 


HARPS   IN   THE   AIR  143 

was  in  itself  a  triumph,  on  our  stage  where 
everything  must  be  downright,  exphcit.  Only 
a  continental  actress,  perhaps,  could  have  done 
it.  We  may  say  that  Nazimova  is  "  insincere," 
that  her  art  consists  of  cleverly  handled  tricks; 
but  the  fact  remains  that  she  has  brought  some- 
thing to  our  stage  it  did  not  possess  before, 
something  modern,  subtle,  exciting,  the  power 
to  suggest  finer  shades  of  meaning,  symbols 
in  the  dialogue,  to  speak  the  speech  and  the 
super-speech  as  well,  unknown  to  our  native 
players  or  our  authors,  either. 

But  what  of  the  Master  Builder  himself? 
What  of  this  egotistical  old  artist  inspired  by  a 
chit  of  a  girl  to  attempt  once  more  "  the  im- 
possible "  ?  How  many  secrets  does  he  not 
hide,  how  many  searchings  of  our  own  aspira- 
tions does  he  not  inspire?  The  play  is,  in  re- 
ality, his  soul  story,  narrated  to  Hilda;  finally, 
at  the  end,  shaped  by  Hilda.  What  are  we  to 
make  of  this  story? 

When  Nazimova  produced  the  play  in  New 
York  one  of  the  ablest  (and  oldest)  of  the 
critics  wrote,  "  Inasmuch  as  no  two  of  [the 
commentators],  seemingly,  are  able  to  agree 
upon  its  true  meaning  or  upon  the  nature  of 
the  message  which  it  is  supposed  to  convey,  it 
is  difificult  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  a  good 
many  of  them  belong  to  the  numerous  body  of 
youthful   enthusiasts   who   are   prone   to    see 


144   THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

something  deep  and  wonderful  in  whatever  they 
themselves  do  not  fully  comprehend."  Ex- 
actly !  I  was  discussing  Ibsen  once  with  a  man 
older  than  I.  He  admitted  that  he  had  never 
seen  one  of  Ibsen's  plays  performed.  "  But," 
said  he  with  an  air  of  finality,  "  I  've  read 
everything  William  Winter  has  written  on  the 
subject.  And  when  you  are  as  old  as  I  am,"  he 
added,  "  you  will  think  as  I  do."  "  Probably," 
said  I.  "  That  is  one  of  the  tragedies  of  grow- 
ing up!"  It  is,  unfortunately,  a  sign  of  ad- 
vancing years  to  lose  faith  in  the  unintelligible. 
I  once  heard  William  James  tell  a  young 
woman  who  had  not  understood  his  lecture  on 
Pragmatism  that  it  is  good  for  all  of  us  now 
and  then  to  listen  to  something  we  don't  under- 
stand. Sometimes,  no  doubt,  the  unintelligi- 
ble is  n't  worth  understanding.  But  it  is  far 
better,  as  well  as  more  modest,  to  infer  that  it 
hides  a  secret  our  minds  are  not  yet  large 
enough  to  grasp,  rather  than  to  infer  that  our 
minds  must  be  able  to  grasp  anything  worth 
grasping.  Perhaps,  in  reality,  this  arrogant 
attitude  of  age  is  but  a  sign  of  mental  laziness. 
Life  is  a  riddle  none  of  us  has  read.  For  a 
space  we  try;  then  we  grow  tired,  preferring 
the  peace  of  our  fireside  and  the  Belasco  drama. 
Ibsen  is  a  trumpet  call  to  youth.  Like  Emerson 
he  preaches  not  philosophy,  but  effort.  Though 
"  The  Master  Builder  "  is  the  story  of  an  aging 


HARPS   IN   THE   AIR  145 

artist,  its  message  is  to  youth.  There  is  some- 
thing of  the  Peter  Pan  in  the  artist.  He  re- 
fuses to  grow  up.  He  must  refuse  to 
grow  up,  or  he  could  not  keep  on  creating, 
playing  his  game  of  make-believe.  But 
some  of  him  grows  up,  and  knows  the  make- 
believe  for  something  other  than  his  boyish 
half  supposes.  Doubts  come;  the  adult  ego 
sees  cruelties  committed  by  the  boy  ego  in  its 
acts  of  creation ;  something  of  the  old,  wild  en- 
thusiasm is  gone ;  where  once  the  act  followed 
the  thought  now  courage  is  lacking;  the  Vik- 
ing conscience  is  no  more.  And  the  aging 
artist  turns  to  youth.  September  wooes  May- 
time.  Heaven  help  the  artist's  wife.  He  must 
be  cruel  to  the  last. 

Now  all  this  is  set  forth  in  "  The  Master 
Builder,"  directly,  unmistakably,  in  the  regula- 
tion terms  of  the  psychology  of  the  theater. 
Doubtless  Ibsen  meant  Solness  to  be  a  bit  auto- 
biographical, a  poet,  not  an  architect.  The 
church  towers  he  first  built  were  the  early 
poetic  dramas,  the  "  homes  for  human  beings," 
the  later  domestic  dramas,  and  finally  **  the 
castles  in  the  air,"  the  last  of  the  plays,  meta- 
physical speculations,  lyric  soul  states.  But 
there  is  nothing  symbolic  about  the  jealousies 
of  Mrs.  Solness,  there  is  nothing  symbolic  about 
the  Master  Builder's  doubts  and  broodings 
over  the  human  tragedies  that  have  followed 


146  THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

his  devouring  career  as  a  great  artist,  the  more 
as  he  seems  to  have  had  a  kind  of  telepathic 
power  over  those  about  him,  so  that  he  finally 
came  to  believe  that  what  he  willed  would  often 
come  to  pass  —  a  belief  in  part  scientifically  jus- 
tifiable, in  part,  perhaps,  sheer  mysticism,  but 
very  human  and  perplexing.  Nor  is  there  any- 
thing symbolic  about  this  tremendous  egotism 
of  his.  He  cannot  give  up  his  art,  for  all  his 
doubts  and  regrets.  He  must  go  on  building. 
And  he  must  have  inspiration.  He  must,  in 
short,  have  Hilda.  He  knows  that  retribution 
will  come,  in  a  world  where  the  individual  can- 
not live  his  fullest  without  injuring  others. 
That  is  his  tragedy,  that  one  of  life's  trage- 
dies, one  of  its  ironies,  and  the  Nemesis  which 
hangs  over  this  drama.  But  so  far  all  is  plain, 
a  study  of  the  artist  by  one  of  the  greatest  of 
the  tribe. 

It  is  Hilda  who  makes  the  real  trouble  for 
the  critics.  And  it  is  Hilda,  perhaps,  who  is 
the  real  symbol,  as  well  as  a  very  human  figure, 
exercising  a  very  genuine  and  physical  allure- 
ment over  the  Master  Builder.  She  is  youth, 
hard,  uncompromising,  demanding  her  king- 
dom here  and  now  on  the  table.  Is  that  why 
the  old  men  flee  from  the  play,  assuring  us  it 
means  nothing?  Do  they  know  only  too  well 
what  it  means?  We  all  set  out  in  life  after  a 
kingdom,  and  we  all  go  down  to  a  grave  "  in  a 


HARPS   IN   THE   AIR  147 

vale  of  the  land  of  Moab."  Eternal  effort, 
eternal  aspiration,  is  there  no  surer  happiness? 
There  is  none  nobler,  Ibsen  would  say.  And 
youth,  with  passionate  scorn,  would  urge  the 
aged  seeker  ever  onward  and  upward.  "  Ox- 
ford," exclaimed  Matthew  Arnold,  "  home  of 
lost  causes  and  impossible  loyalties!"  "Just 
once  more,  Mr.  Solness!  "  pleads  Hilda.  "  Do 
the  impossible  once  again ! "  On  no  other 
terms  will  she  have  him.  That  is  her  king- 
dom, to  keep  him  ever  striving  for  the  impos- 
sible, ever  climbing  higher  than  he  can, 
higher  than  he  dares  —  as  high,  in  fact,  as 
he  hopes  and  dreams!  That  is  the  trumpet 
call  to  youth  in  "  The  Master  Builder  " ;  that, 
perhaps,  why  the  aged  will  not,  dare  not, 
hearken. 

But  Solness  fell  and  was  dashed  to  pieces. 
Brittle  age  crashed  against  unyielding  youth, 
Solness  against  Hilda,  and  went  down  like 
crockery.  What  is  the  answer  to  the  riddle 
here?  Perhaps  there  is  no  answer.  Life  does 
not  answer  our  questionings,  why  should  Ibsen  ? 
Poor  Solness,  poor  Hilda,  their  hearts  tugged 
and  pulled  by  the  Troll  o'  dreams  within  them 
both,  must  their  end  always  be  but  castles  in  the 
air?  What  builder,  however  much  a  master, 
can  build  the  stairs  that  reach  to  a  castle  in  the 
air?  As  the  play  floats  up  into  symbolism,  into 
allegory,  it  points  no  path  to  the  unattainable, 


148   THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

it  kindles  no  beacon  on  the  heights.  Only  in 
the  laboring  darkness  it  comes  like  a  voice  from 
the  higher  ledges,  "  Hope  on,  and  climb !  "  Oh, 
grim  old  Norwegian,  it  was  cruel  of  you  to  in- 
sult our  critics  so !  They  know  well  enough  that 
life  is  plain  and  simple  and  easy,  that  striving 
for  the  dream  is  no  part  of  it,  that  it  is  far  bet- 
ter and  saner,  instead  of  building  castles  in  the 
air  which  cannot  be  reached,  to  own  your  little 
home  in  Flatbush,  easily  reached  and  quickly 
by  the  Brooklyn  Rapid  Transit.  What  is  all 
this  mystic  talk  about  effort  and  aspiration  and 
freedom  and  "  harps  in  the  air,"  this  setting  of 
problems  without  a  solution,  this  stirring  up  of 
our  souls  into  a  brief,  bitter  moment  of  doubt 
whether  life  has  any  solution,  save  only  always 
to  strive?  Why,  even  Charles  Klein  can  settle 
the  problems  of  life  for  you  in  the  drama 
neatly  and  expeditiously  —  that  is,  what  few 
problems  life  has,  such  as  trusts  and  labor  ques- 
tions. No,  grim  old  Norwegian,  we  "  youthful 
enthusiasts  "  are  all  wrong  about  you !  You 
are  shallow  and  meaningless  and  mean.  You 
cannot  read  us  the  riddle  of  life,  tell  us  the 
destiny  of  man.  You  can  only  hint  at  mys- 
teries, trumpet-call  to  effort  toward  the  dream, 
paint  castles  in  the  air.  Go  back  and  sit 
by  the  Sphinx  and  be  ashamed  of  yourself. 
We  will  put  by  our  youth  as  fast  as  we 
can  and  apologize  for  our  enthusiasms  and 


HARPS   IN  THE   AIR  149 

insist  that  every  character  on  the  stage  shall 
be  as  simple  and  plain  and  easy  to  read  as 
life  itself  is.  That  will  be  something  worth 
doing  —  and  may  we  be  struck  dead  when  we 
do  it! 


NAZIMOVA  AS  THE  LADY  LISA 

(Bijou,  December  30,  1907) 

OWEN  JOHNSON  has  dramatized  the 
Lady  Lisa.  Probably  he  did  it  uncon- 
sciously; and  probably  Nazimova  is 
virginally  ignorant  of  Walter  Pater.  But  to 
see  "  The  Comet "  is  certainly  to  recall,  not 
Kipling's  crude  poem  about  the  Vampire, 
with  its  rag  and  its  bone  and  its  hank 
of  hair  appropriated  from  the  Sacred  Books 
•  of  .Buddha,  nor  the  cruder  picture  it  accom- 
panied as  text;  but  rather,  if  a  little  vaguely 
and  a  little  apologetically,  that  passage  of  in- 
comparable prose  ff-om  "  The  Renaissance," 
from  the  essay  on  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  begin- 
ning, "  Hers  is  the  head  upon  which  all  '  the 
ends  of  the  world  are  come,'  and  the  eyelids 
are  a  little  weary.  She  is  older  than  the  rocks 
among  which  she  sits,"  the  haunting  cadences 
go^on  to  say;  "  like  the  vampire,  she  has  been 
dead  many  times,  and  learned  the  secrets  of  the 
grave;  and  has  been  a  diver  in  deep  seas,  and 
keeps  their  fallen  day  about  her;  and  trafficked 
for  strange  webs  with  Eastern  merchants: 
and,  as  Leda,   was  the  mother  of  Helen  of 


NAZIMOVA   AS   THE    LADY   LISA       151 

Troy ;  and,  as  St.  Anne,  the  Mother  of  Mary ; 
and  all  this  has  been  to  her  but  as  the  sound  of 
lyres  and  flutes,  and  lives  only  in  the  delicacy 
with  which  it  has  molded  the  changing  lin- 
eaments and  tinged  the  eyelids  and  the  hands. 
The  fancy  of  a  perpetual  life,  sweeping  to- 
gether ten  thousand  experiences,  is  an  old  one; 
and  modern  thought  has  conceived  the  idea  of 
humanity  as  wrought  upon  by  and  summing 
up  in  itself  all  modes  of  thought  and  life.  Cer- 
tainly Lady  Lisa  might  stand  as  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  old  fancy,  the  symbol  of  the  mod- 
ern idea." 

It  is  at  once  the  strength  and  the  weakness 
of  Mr.  Johnson's  play  that  it  suggests  not 
only  this  passage,  but  kindred  pictures  of  the 
woman  who  holds  in  her  cinder  of  a  body,  in 
her  cinder  of  a  soul,  the  experiences  of  the 
ages.  It  is  its  strength  because  the  conception 
has  an  irresistible  appeal  to  the  imagination, 
a  compelling  poetry  about  it.  It  is  its  weak- 
ness because  Mr.  Johnson  has  sacrificed  to  his 
symbolism  the  keen,  homely  tang  of  reality. 
Even  the  other  characters,  as  well  as  his  hero- 
ine, are  dramatized  moods,  theories,  soul  states, 
not  beings  of  our  common  flesh  and  blood. 
Whether  this  results  from  an  exaggerated 
effort  after  the  symbolic  —  "  The  Comet  "  is 
Mr.  Johnson's  first  play  —  or  from  a  lack  of 
interest  in  the  characters  as  persons  does  not 


152    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

greatly  concern  us.  The  fact  remains.  That 
his  primary  effort  was  not  after  reahty  is,  how- 
ever, plainly  enough  shown  by  the  setting  of 
the  drama  —  in  the  Spanish  Pyrenees.  Ob- 
viously the  characters  are  not  Spanish,  they 
belong  to  no  nation.  They  are  creatures  of 
the  author's  brain.  He  put  his  scene  where 
he  did  to  remove  it  as  far  as  possible  from  real- 
ity, doubtless  in  part  influenced  by  the  exotic 
personality  of  his  star.  "  Magda,"  which  the 
play  inevitably  suggests,  is  frankly  and  unmis- 
takably German.  Its  feet  are  on  solid  ground. 
**  The  Comet "  is  not  American.  Its  feet  are 
not  on  solid  ground.  It  lacks  that  homely 
touch  of  familiar  domestic  detail  which  would 
have  helped  it  vastly  in  winning  the  under- 
standing and  interest  of  the  average  audience. 

But  had  that  touch  been  given  it  Mr.  John- 
son would  then  have  had  to  face  the  task,  more 
easy  now  from  the  very  unreality  of  his  setting, 
of  making  real  this  fantastic  figure  of  a 
woman,  this  vision  with  the  centuries  in  her 
sleepless  eyes  and  a  cinder  for  a  soul.  As  she 
stands  now,  for  all  his  efforts  to  make  her 
carry  a  ''  message,"  to  make  her  impressive 
as  an  illustration  of  certain  theories  of  his  re- 
garding the  artist  ego,  Lona,  on  the  stage, 
is  chiefly  impressive  for  a  certain  picturesque 
quality,  as  of  a  metaphor  come  to  life,  for  her 
suggestions  to  the  imaginative  beholder  of  dim 


NAZIMOVA   AS   THE   LADY   LISA       153 

fables  read  long  ago,  of  Poelike  tales,  of  the 
face  of  the  Lady  Lisa,  of  horrible  experiences 
and  great  spiritual  adventures,  not  real  and 
capable  of  bringing  suffering  to  you  in  your 
theater  chair  but  lived  in  a  fantastic  dream. 
She  has  the  vagueness  and  the  charm  of 
allegory. 

Now,  without  doubt,  though  Mr.  Johnson 
intended  some  of  this  picturesqueness,  he  in- 
tended even  more  that  Lona  should  be  a  fic- 
tional embodiment  of  such  a  type  of  woman 
artist  as  George  Sand  (to  mention  only  the 
dead),  who  ate  up  Chopin  and  De  Musset  and 
even  bore  a  child  to  satiate  her  lust  for  exper- 
ience, and  mounted  on  the  dead  soul  of  her, 
on  her  slain  womanhood,  to  artistic  heights. 
He  meant  Lona  should  be  a  very  real  person. 
But  Lona  does  not  impress  the  beholder  as  a 
real  person  nor  is  she  surrounded  by  real  per- 
sons nor  does  she  move  in  a  setting  of  reality. 
In  so  far  as  she  does  not,  his  drama  may  be 
said  to  be  a  failure,  wherever  the  fault  lies. 
But  in  so  far  as  he  yet  contrives  to  create 
vividly  and  with  well  wrought  episode  the 
imaginative  picture  of  a  woman  upon  whose 
head  "  all  the  ends  of  the  world  are  come," 
figurative  and  aloof  though  she  be,  he  has  done 
something  fine,  something  out  of  the  ordinary 
on  our  stage,  something  which  should  win  for 
him  praise  and  approval,  not  scorn  and  laugh- 


154     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

ter.  This  Lona  of  his,  this  "  woman  of  a 
thousand  years,  fleeing  in  the  smoky  dawn," 
personified  by  Nazimova  and  a  wonderful 
gray  gown  with  a  wonderful  tall  collar,  is, 
merely  to  look  upon,  merely  to  hear  recite  her 
horrible  confession  of  her  fall  and  her  rise, 
an  unforgetable  thing,  a  thing  to  haunt  you, 
to  invade  your  dreams,  to  disturb  your  little 
illusions  and  the  petty  gratifications  of  your 
little  loves  and  hates.  Not  to  feel  this,  not  to 
give  Mr.  Johnson  the  credit  for  it,  is  to  do  a 
gross  injustice. 

It  is  only  fair  to  the  author  to  state  briefly 
what  theories  of  life  and  conduct  —  for  "  The 
Comet "  is  a  drama  with  a  purpose  —  he  in- 
tended to  convey  in  his  play.  First,  then,  the 
drama  hymns  the  exaltation  of  the  artist  over 
the  individual.  Lona,  a  George  Sand  type, 
believes  that  her  soul  is  dead  as  the  price  of 
her  greatness,  and  glories  in  that  fact.  The 
woman  had  first  to  die  in  her,  she  says,  "  be- 
cause the  woman  would  have  to  be  a  slave." 
(See  G.  B.  Shaw,  "The  Revolutionist's  Hand 
Book  " :  "  Home  is  the  girl's  prison  and  the 
woman's  workhouse.")  But  nobody  is  ever 
quite  dead,  and  so  Lona's  soul  is  roused  by  Fer- 
nand's  young  passion  to  be  great  and  his  ap- 
peal to  her  to  help  him.  It  is  still  a  sort  of 
artist's  vision  that  she  has  —  she  will  be  the 
creator  of  Fernand;  but  it  is  a  creative,  not  a 


NAZIMOVA   AS   THE   LADY   LISA       155 

destructive  instinct  toward  one  of  her  fellows, 
and  so  marks  a  kind  of  regeneration  in  her, 
Fcrnand  plainly  enough  is  intended  to  convey 
the  lesson  that  the  artist  who  would  interpret 
human  nature  must  not  judge,  but  understand. 
There  is  no  dispute  with  this  fine  moral. 
*'  Father,"  he  says,  "  what  I  have  learned  to- 
day has  made  me  so  humble  that  I  would  go 
and  seek  the  most  miserable  outcast  in  the 
street  to  learn  what  she  can  teach  me."  So 
from  scorn  of  the  Comet  he  passes  to  the  point 
of  packing  up  to  depart  with  her  to  "  learn 
life."  Finally  Cecilia,  the  young  sister  of 
Lona,  betrothed  to  Fernand,  typifies  the 
woman  who  sees  no  way  to  get  experience  but 
by  attaching  herself  to  a  man,  and  when  Lona 
takes  Fernand  away  from  her  she  is  not  so 
much  broken-hearted  as  glad  of  the  initiative 
which  has  been  given  her  to  "  cross  the  seas  " 
for  herself.     (Again  see  Shaw,  as  above.) 

Now  it  would  be  perfectly  easy  to  take  most 
of  the  doctrines  in  this  play  and  find  sources 
for  them  in  more  or  less  recent  literature. 
Startling  novelty  they  do  not  have.  ''  You 
wish  a  career,  you  said  to  climb,  and  you  are 
going  to  put  on  your  back  a  double  burden," 
says  Lona  to  Fernand,  referring  to  his  mar- 
riage. Literature  is  not  lacking  in  this  sort  of 
thing.  Kipling  ends  *'  The  Story  of  the 
Gadsbys  "  with  a  poem,  where  he  says  that 


156    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE    OF   TO-DAY 

"  white  hands  ding  to  the  tightened  rein,"  and 
adds: 

"Down  to  Gehenna  or  up  to  the  throne, 
He  travels  fastest  who  travels  alone." 


Shaw's  preface  to  "  Man  and  Superman," 
wherein  he  discusses  the  sex  impulse  and  the 
artist  impulse,  is  a  source  for  this  play;  I  do 
not  say  a  conscious  source,  but  a  source  none 
the  less,  for  ideas  that  are  in  the  air  will  surely 
get  into  the  work  of  an  earnest  and  scholarly 
young  writer  like  Mr.  Johnson.  Professor 
Thomas's  "  Sex  and  Society  "  might  have  fur- 
nished another  bit,  Lona's  speech,  ''  The  future 
is  ours  [i.  e.,  woman's] ;  we  have  never  gone 
back,  all  civilization  and  all  society  have 
changed  as  we  have  forced  our  way  up." 
"  Hedda  Gabler  "  very  palpably  furnishes  a 
dramatic  device,  that  of  making  Fernand  re- 
main in  the  room  with  Lona  to  show  his 
strength,  just  as  Loveherg  drank  the  punch. 
Even,  of  course,  the  idea  of  the  woman  who 
sums  up  in  herself  the  experiences  of  a  thou- 
sand years  is  not  new  to  literature  and  specu- 
lation, if  it  is  to  the  stage.  "  I  '11  make  a  legend 
of  these  old  thoughts  that  young  men  begin 
with,"  Fernand  exclaims.  Well,  Mr.  Johnson 
has  made  a  play! 

However,  it  is  not  with  sources  that  I  would 
quarrel,  nor  with  the  fact  that  Mr.  Johnson 


NAZIMOVA   AS   THE   LADY   LISA       157 

does  n't  give  the  impression  in  his  work  of  a 
thorough  digestion  of  these  ideas.  It  is  with 
the  fact  that  the  ideas  as  he  has  used  them  are 
after  all  quite  demonstrably  false.  George 
Sands  there  are,  and  it  is  wholly  legitimate 
and  entirely  fascinating  to  show  in  a  play. 
But  to  preach  from  her  that  through  her  way 
lies  greatness  in  art,  to  use  her  as  a  symbol 
of  the  artist's  vision,  is  to  falsify  the  artistic 
achievement  and  debase  the  artist 's  vision. 
To  say  that  the  interpreter  of  humanity  must 
understand,  not  judge,  is  fine  and  true.  But 
to  imply,  as  Mr.  Johnson  will  seem  to  do  in 
the  eyes  of  his  audiences,  whether  that  was 
his  intent  or  not,  that  in  order  to  understand 
the  woman  of  the  gutter  one  must  go  down 
into  the  gutter  with  her  is  juvenile  and  absurd. 
Even  the  white  hands  clinging  to  the  tightened 
rein  is  a  theory  too  often  exploded  to  have  the 
force  of  law.  The  vagaries  and  varieties 
of  the  "artistic  temperament"  (Oh,  perilous 
phrase!)  are  many  and  great.  This  tempera- 
ment has  produced  monsters  in  order  to  pro- 
duce masterpieces.  But  it  has  also  produced 
the  Brownings  and  such  a  host  of  other  sane 
and  noble  men  and  women,  who  have  lived  at 
peace  with  society,  their  neighbors,  and  their 
wives,  that  no  such  attitude  as  Mr.  Johnson's 
—  which  is  not  free  from  a  taint  of  the  Bohe- 
mian pose  —  is  seriously  representative  of  the 
artist  soul. 


158    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

Another  quarrel  there  is,  too,  with  his 
gratuitously  unpleasant  catastrophe.  Lona's 
first  false  step,  as  Owen  Davis  would  phrase 
it,  had  been  taken  eighteen  years  before  the 
play  begins,  and  Fernand's  father  had  been 
the  guilty  man,  though  Fernand  does  not  know 
it.  After  this  long  interval  she  comes  back 
and  is  about  to  take  his  son  away  (there  is 
something  of  Hawthorne's  "  Feathertop " 
here).  The  father,  in  a  mad  efifort  to  stay  his 
boy,  all  other  means  failing,  cries  out,  "  There 
is  a  law  which  even  the  beasts  of  the  field  obey, 
that  father  and  son  shall  not  share  the  same 
woman."  Then  the  boy  goes  out  and  kills 
himself,  and  into  Lona's  eyes,  which  have  be- 
gun to  glow  again  with  human  warmth,  comes 
the  dead  lustre  of  the  burnt-out  coal  as  the 
curtain  falls.  Of  course,  there  is  no  such  law, 
certainly  not  for  "  the  beasts  of  the  field."  Mr. 
Johnson  has  never  bred  dogs.  But  if  there 
were  such  a  law,  under  the  avowed  philosophy 
of  the  play  Fernand  should  have  broken  it. 
However,  that  is  not  the  point.  The  objec- 
tion is  rather  to  the  needless  nastiness  of  the 
entire  episode,  savoring  as  it  does  of  D'An- 
nunzio.  The  structure  of  the  play  may  demand 
it  from  the  beginning,  but  then  the  structure 
of  the  play  from  the  beginning  is  in  need  of 
revision.  Mr.  Johnson  could  have  preached 
what  he  wants  to  preach  quite  as  effectively 


NAZIMOVA   AS   THE   LADY   LISA      159 

under  conceivably  different  circumstances  and 
avoided  what  is  after  all  a  taint.  There  is 
no  desire  on  the  part  of  the  present  writer  to 
deny  any  man  the  right  to  his  ideas  and  their 
full  expression,  to  wave  the  moral  bugaboo, 
to  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  any  message,  whether 
from  archbishop  or  anarchist.  In  fact  the  an- 
archist is  likely  to  get  the  more  attentive  audi- 
ence! But  this  episode  under  discussion  is  no 
part  of  Mr.  Johnson's  message,  only  of  his 
machinery.  It  is  not  essential  to  his  philoso- 
phy, even  deeply  to  his  psychology,  only  to  the 
arbitrary  structure  of  his  story.  For  that  rea- 
son it  is  gratuitous  and,  in  all  kindness  to  Mr. 
Johnson,  in  bad  taste. 

Nazimova's  portrayal  of  the  cinder  woman 
gives  to  the  play  more  of  popular  appeal  than 
its  philosophy  is  ever  likely  to.  Surely  she 
is  the  living  embodiment  of  Fernand's  descrip- 
tion, "  a  woman  of  a  thousand  years,  fleeing 
in  the  smoky  dawn."  Surely  the  awakening 
of  a  spark  in  her  burnt-out  cinder  of  a  soul  is 
denoted  with  a  vividness  and  certainty  that 
are  astonishing.  And  surely  in  her  final  and 
sudden  collapse  once  more  into  a  cinder  the 
art  of  mere  bodily  pose  and  suggestion  is  seen 
at  its  very  finest.  That  Nazimova's  Lona  is 
not  a  living,  pulsating,  mental  organism,  for 
all  its  dead  soul,  such  a  complicated  being  as 
Mr.  Johnson  probably  had  in  mind  to  paint,  is 


160     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

true.  It  is  a  strange,  fantastic  vampire  out 
of  the  realms  of  unreality,  a  dead  thing  met 
in  dreams  on  the  road  of  night,  dead  with  its 
own  weight  of  vague,  shadowy  experiences. 
But  it  comes  across  the  footlights  like  a  heavy 
odor,  all  the  more  strangely  on  that  account. 
And  until  another  actress  has  played  the  part 
it  transcends  criticism  to  say  whether  the 
effect  is  not  inherent,  after  all,  in  the  construc- 
tion of  the  drama,  itself  unreal,  a  play  of 
theories  and  passions,  not  persons.  At  any 
rate  there  they  are,  play  and  picture,  some- 
thing purpose-fraught  and  imaginative,  and 
out  of  the  ordinary  to  such  a  degree  that  they 
have  been  viewed  and  judged  with  a  copious 
amount  of  misunderstanding,  incomprehen- 
sion and  silly  and  stupid  jeers.  They  may  not 
be  to  your  liking,  but  they  are  not  to  be  merely 
laughed  away.  The  thorns  may  crackle  under 
the  pot  and  the  coins  jingle  in  young  Mr. 
George  Cohan's  pocket;  but  the  author  of 
**  The  Comet,"  if  he  is  wise,  will  not  let  that 
trouble  him  in  the  least. 


OF  JUSTIFIABLE  HOMICIDE 

(Lyric,  March  9,  1908) 

ONCE  upon  a  time  a  recruit  in  a  regi- 
ment stationed  at  Peshawar,  so  we  are 
told  by  Kenneth  Grahame,  appHed  for 
leave  of  absence  "  in  order  to  attend  to  family 
matters  of  importance."  Knowing  that  he 
would  desert  if  the  leave  were  not  granted  the 
colonel  let  him  go.  Presently  he  returned, 
subdued  but  cheerful.  The  colonel  ventured 
to  inquire  if  he  had  arranged  matters  in  his 
family  to  his  satisfaction.  And  he  replied:  "  I 
got  him  from  behind  a  rock." 

There  is  something  delightfully  appealing 
about  this  primitive  method  of  dealing  out 
justice.  It  hardly  accords  with  open  plumbing, 
taxicabs,  churches,  piano  players,  police  de- 
partments, Andrew  Carnegie,  and  other  appur- 
tenances of  modern  civilization.  But  there 
come  times  to  all  of  us,  though  we  stand  on 
the  topmost  rung  of  the  ladder  of  evolution  and 
look  down  in  scorn  on  the  Cave  man,  when, 
like  the  walrus,  we  "  deeply  sympathize." 
William  Vaughn  Moody's  "  little  man  in  trou- 
sers, slightly  jagged,"  advised  quite  perti- 
nently that 


162    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE    OF   TO-DAY 

"  If  nature  made  you  graceful,  don't  get  gay, 

Back-to  before  the  hippopotamus: 
If  meek  and  godl)',  find  some  place  to  play 

Besides  right  where  three  mad  hyenas  fuss: 
You  may  hear  language  that  we  won't  discuss." 

Often  perhaps  it 's  a  relative ;  Kenneth  Gra- 
hame  preferred  uncles;  our  own  choice  would 
be  aunts.  But  often  too  it  is  n't  a  relative  at 
all.  There  are  various  kinds  of  bores,  and 
men  who  employ  little  children  in  factories, 
and  assorted  occupants  of  Circe's  sty  who 
bring  dead  cigars  into  street  cars,  or  pursue 
women,  or  wear  offensive  dress  waistcoats 
with  brass  buttons,  —  "  They  'd  none  of  them 
be  missed."  But  alas!  convention  doth  make 
cowards  of  us  all;  and,  like  Zerlina  in  "  Don 
Giovanni,"  we  would,  and  yet  we  would  not. 
We  have  not  the  courage  of  our  convictions. 
The  weight  of  the  social  order  is  heavy  upon 
us,  and  we  let  our  marked  down  victims  live. 
But  Art  is  not  reality,  however  hard  it  strives 
to  be  in  the  Belasco  drama.  In  the  theater  we 
can  indulge  a  sneaking  satisfaction  in  the  per- 
formance of  deeds  of  slaughter  that  we  should 
never  dare  do  ourselves.  We  can  be  mad 
hyenas  to  our  heart's  content  and  not  feel  a 
bit  the  worse  for  it.  In  short,  we  can  rejoice 
that  Rodion,  in  Laurence  Irving's  play,  *'  The 
Fool  Hath  Said,  There  Is  No  God,"  chopped 
old  Gromoif  up  with  an  axe,  knowing  that  it 


OF   JUSTIFIABLE   HOMICIDE  163 

served  the  old  swine  jolly  well  right;  and  we 
can  not  only  refuse  to  be  convinced  that  Rodion 
ever  repented  of  his  deed  but  actually  hope  that 
he  did  n't  repent,  without  feeling  that  our 
sentiments  fail  to  do  us  credit. 

Now  those  of  us  who  are  doomed  by  birth 
and  training  to  stagger  through  life  under  a 
Pilgrim's  pack  of  Puritan  conscience  may  ex- 
perience, along  with  these  sentiments,  a  vague 
presentiment  that  we  ought  to  be  ashamed  of 
them,  much  like  the  small  girl  in  the  advertise- 
ment who  is  sure  that  a  certain  breakfast  food 
is  bad  for  her  because  it 's  so  good !  There 
must,  we  are  confident,  be  something  pro- 
foundly immoral  about  a  play  that  makes  of 
murder  not  a  fine  art,  indeed,  as  De  Quincey 
did,  but  a  thing  of  moral  beauty,  of  ethical 
satisfaction.  For,  mark  you,  this  Fool  who 
said  in  his  heart  there  is  no  God,  also  said, 
"  Moses  gave  the  Ten  Commandments ;  he 
didn't  keep  them."  He  was  no  fool,  not  he! 
In  spite  of  the  author's  feeble  efforts  to  con- 
vince us  to  the  contrary  in  the  last  act,  he  was 
never  converted.  Poor  little  Sonias  trivial 
superstitions  and  pack  of  stale  conventions 
that  she  called  her  religion  could  not  impress 
such  a  mind  as  Rodion  s  except  with  pity.  He 
gave  himself  up  to  the  police  that  she  might 
keep  her  faith,  not  because  he  had  lost  his. 
Or,  if  you  object  that  he  had  no  faith,  his 


164    THE   AMERICAN    STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

doubts,  then,  for  doubts  sometimes  represent 
a  far  deeper  and  more  passionate  capacity 
for  religion,  for  the  higher  Hfe,  than  any  con- 
formity to  creed  can  do.  And  if  he  had  acted 
from  any  other  motive  he  would  have  seemed 
weak-kneed,  a  quitter.  He  was  never  sorry 
that  he  killed  the  old  man,  and  neither  are  we. 
What,  then,  are  we  to  think  of  such  a  play,  a 
successful  plea  for  the  morality  of  murder? 
Should  not  the  police  be  called  in?  This  is 
worse  than  "  Mrs.  Warren's  Profession  " ! 

Well,  some  of  us  won't  think  anything  at  all 
about  it,  because  the  play  as  a  story  is,  after 
the  opening  act  or  two,  dull  and  monotonous. 
Nothing  dull  ever  harmed  anybody's  morality. 
If  virtue  would  only  wear  scarlet  the  world 
would  be  a  better  place  at  once !  And  some  of 
the  rest  of  us  will  think,  "  Lo,  how  difficult  it 
is  to  write  a  good  play." 

For  the  real  trouble  with  Laurence  Irving's 
drama  is  that  he  dodges  the  issue,  both  the 
technical  issue  and  the  ethical,  or  the  working 
out  of  his  idea.  It  is  the  same  old  trouble. 
How  countless  many  dramas  have  gone  to 
ruin  on  the  same  reef!  The  lodestone  moun- 
tain in  "  The  Arabian  Nights  "  never  wrecked 
more  ships.  Perhaps  the  dramatists  have  too 
long  bowed  down  before  false  gods,  invoking 
Melpomene  when  it  is  the  patron  shade  of  a 
Jevons  or  a  Hegel  they  should  seek,  authors 


OF   JUSTIFIABLE    HOMICIDE  165 

of  dreary  works  on  logic.  Dreary,  yes;  but, 
oh,  how  indispensable!  We  talk  of  "  the  great, 
irregular  art  of  Shakespeare "  (or  Pater 
does).  As  if  there  were  ever  anything  more 
remorselessly  logical  than  "  Othello  " !  But 
we  maintain  with  our  patronage  in  the  theater 
"Iris,"  and  "Mrs.  Dane's  Defence,"  and 
*'  The  Thief,"  plays  that  march  their  plot 
along  with  logical  progression,  each  new  step 
following  out  of  the  last,  each  step  a  part  of 
the  whole,  but  the  whole  not  seen  or  realized 
till  the  parts  have  all  been  fitted.  It  is  not  the 
curse  of  "  the  well  made  play  "  that  it  follows 
this  logical  course,  but  that  it  does  nothing 
more,  that  its  whole  is  not  worth  the  trouble. 

Now,  the  technical  problem  in  "  The  Fool 
Hath  Said,  There  Is  No  God "  was  clearly 
stated  in  the  first  act.  Rodion  declared  that 
the  moral  conviction  of  a  man  who  commits 
a  so-called  crime  for  what  he  deems  the  good 
of  humanity  is  a  better  weapon  of  defence 
against  detection  than  the  "  nervous  insensi- 
bility "  of  the  true  criminal.  Rodion  had 
moral  conviction  enough  to  reform  Philadel- 
phia, but  he  also  had  nervous  sensibility 
enough  to  stagger  Philadelphia's  most  famous 
specialist  in  that  line,  Dr.  Weir  Mitchell. 
The  battle  between  his  moral  conviction  and 
his  tottering  nerves,  a  purely  subjective  battle 
within  himself,  made  material  for  the  actor's 


166    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

art  —  picturesque,  and  up  to  a  certain  point 
interesting  material.  But  it  did  not  make 
drama,  which  requires  two  wills,  not  one ;  and 
after  a  time  these  nervous  fits,  these  physical 
collapses,  grew  deadly  tiresome.  The  techni- 
cal problem  of  the  play  was  not  really  to 
picture  them  but  to  set  Rodions  will  against 
that  of  Besac,  the  examining  magistrate,  to 
weave  around  this  struggling  captive  an  ever 
tightening  net.  And  either  from  his  desire  to 
elaborate  the  stellar  role,  which  caused  him 
to  dwell  too  much  on  the  subjective  emotions 
of  Rodion,  or  from  his  inability  logically  to 
work  out  his  problem  with  fertile  invention, 
Mr.  Irving  fails  to  develop  this  situation  step 
by  step,  to  construct  a  drama  that  holds  the 
attention  in  ever  increasing  grip. 

In  a  word,  Bczac's  cross  questionings  do  not 
hang  together,  do  not  lead  each  from  each,  do 
not  close  in  about  the  victim.  They  are  hap- 
hazard, scattered.  To  be  sure,  Becac  was  sup- 
posedly baffled  by  Rodion' s  resistance;  and 
cross-examiners  before  now,  in  life,  have  ap- 
peared to  have  no  logical  plan,  to  be  ques- 
tioning at  random.  But  the  drama  is  not  life. 
There  is  not  the  same  interest  felt  in  the  fate 
of  a  fictitious  character  as  in  the  fate  of  a  liv- 
ing man,  however  humble  he  may  be.  A 
drama  to  maintain  its  interest  must  concen- 
trate, must  develop,  must  move  by  accumu- 


OF   JUSTIFIABLE   HOMICIDE  167 

lated  force.  Compare  the  big  act  of  "  The 
Hypocrites,"  where  the  preacher  is  driven  step 
by  step  into  an  ever  more  hopeless  position,  to 
be  released  only  at  the  final  moment,  or  of 
"  Mrs.  Dane's  Defence,"  where  the  lawyer, 
by  question  after  question,  slowly,  relentlessly, 
inevitably,  backs  his  victim  up  a  blind  alley 
against  the  dead  wall  of  a  confession,  with  the 
fourth  act  of  Mr.  Irving's  play  and  the  differ- 
ence will  at  once  be  seen.  That  Mr.  Irving 
realized  his  problem  is  evident  from  Rodions 

final  "  I ,  I ,"  interrupted  just  in  time 

by  the  false  confession  of  the  workman.  But 
this  is  a  trick,  a  mere  theatrical  trick;  and  it 
comes  at  the  very  end  of  an  act  without  devel- 
opment or  suspense,  too  late  to  save  it. 

But  Mr.  Irving  no  less  surely  dodged  his 
ethical  issue,  failed  to  follow  the  logical  devel- 
opment of  the  idea  behind  his  play. 

"  I  was  my  own  spider,"  says  the  hero  of 
one  of  Turgeniefif's  novels.  "  We  Russians 
have  no  other  life  problem,"  he  goes  on,  "  than 
the  cultivation  of  our  personality!  .  .  .  With- 
out having  received  from  within  any  definite 
direction,  in  reality  respecting  nothing,  believ- 
ing firmly  in  nothing,  we  are  free  to  make  of 
ourselves  whatsoever  we  will.  .  .  .  On  the 
other  hand,  we  are  great  psychologists.  Oh, 
yes,  we  are  great  psychologists !  But  our  psy- 
chology strays  off  into  pathology;    our  psy- 


168    THE   AMERICAN    STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

chology  is  an  artful  study  of  the  laws  of  a 
diseased  condition  and  a  diseased  development, 
with  which  healthy  people  have  no  concern. 
But  the  chief  thing  is,  we  are  not  young  —  in 
youth  itself  we  are  not  young !  " 

Sad  words,  these;  yet  how  true  a  descrip- 
tion of  Rodion!  He  was  his  own  spider, 
caught  in  the  meshes  of  his  wild,  anarchistic, 
humanitarian  theory  of  justifiable  homicide. 
His  brooding,  introspective  psychology  was 
but  pathology  too;  and  surely  he  was  never 
young;  that  thin,  haggard  face  of  his,  a  face 
full  of  fruitless  passions,  the  scarred  battle- 
ground of  intellectual  rebellions,  which  Mr. 
Sothern  made  manifest,  never  knew  the  smile 
of  careless  youth.  But  why,  why  was  he  never 
young?  How  make  him  young  again?  How 
free  him  from  the  web  his  own  fate  had  spun? 
How  set  him  right  with  the  social  order?  That 
was  the  intellectual  problem  of  the  play  —  a 
splendid  problem,  worthy  of  the  highest 
powers. 

And  this  is  how  the  author  answered  it! 
He  told  Rodion  that  murder  revenges  itself 
not  on  the  conscience  but  the  nervous  system. 
And  he  tried  to  tell  us  that  the  prattling  pray- 
ers of  an  ignorant  girl  and  her  mummeries  be- 
fore an  ikon  are  sufficient  to  solve  the  intellec- 
tual doubts  of  a  man  who  is  seeking  with  his 
own  hand  to  redress  terrible  wrongs  that  seem 


OF   JUSTIFIABLE   HOMICIDE  169 

to  him  woven  in  the  texture  of  the  universe. 
In  the  name  of  the  Prophet,  figs!  The  best 
play  that  was  ever  written,  to  be  sure,  is  not 
an  answer  to  any  problem.  For  a  play  deals 
with  individual  men  and  women,  and  it  is  only 
by  the  collection  of  large  numbers  of  individual 
cases  that  anything  like  a  law,  a  solution  of  a 
problem,  can  be  arrived  at.  Yet  if  a  play  is 
to  be  of  the  slightest  value,  even  as  one  in  a 
collection,  it  must  be  made  of  different  stuff 
than  this.  Mr.  Irving  is  in  the  ridiculous  posi- 
tion of  the  man  who  used  to  answer  the  argu- 
ments of  an  evolutionist  by  quoting  the  book 
of  Genesis. 

So  we  swing  around  through  seriousness 
seriously  to  consider  the  absurdities  of  our 
opening  paragraphs.  For,  horrible  as  murder 
is,  greatly  as  it  violates  our  civilized  instincts, 
there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  Mr.  Irving 
meant  his  audiences  to  sympathize  with  Rod- 
ion  in  the  murder  of  Gromoff ;  there  is  not  the 
slightest  doubt  that  the  audiences  do  sympa- 
thize, are  perfectly  satisfied  to  see  the  old  swine 
killed.  There  are  warring  instincts  in  us  too, 
the  mad  hyena  heart  beating  beneath  the 
boiled  shirt  bosom,  the  right  of  the  individual 
rebelling  against  the  might  of  society.  Do  we 
not  still  talk  of  "  the  unwritten  law  "  ?  Rodion, 
a  Russian,  saw  human  life  held  as  anything 
but  sacred  by  the  Government  and  the  institu- 


170     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

tions  about  him.  When  conventional  religion 
quoted  to  him  the  Decalogue,  he  replied  that 
Moses  slew  the  Egyptian.  Even  his  friends 
agreed  that  old  Gromoff  deserved  to  die;  it 
was  only  after  they  had  seen  the  body,  only 
under  the  physical  repugnance  at  a  bloody 
corpse,  that  the  idea  of  his  murder  became  hor- 
rible to  them.  That  is  a  good  deal  like  saying, 
Thou  shalt  not  kill  because  it  is  n't  pretty. 
All  our  centuries  of  struggle  up  from  the  prim- 
eval ooze  have  accomplished  but  little  if  that 
is  the  best  answer  we  can  give. 

Rodion  was  at  odds  with  society.  And  it 
was  only  by  the  social  argument  that  he  could 
be  answered.  Little  Sonia  lisped,  as  she  had 
been  taught  to  do,  that  our  lives  are  given  to 
us  by  God,  without  the  slightest  conception  of 
what  she  meant.  And  though  she  recoiled 
from  Rodion  before  he  gave  himself  up,  she 
was  perfectly  ready  to  marry  him  after  he  'd 
served  his  time  in  Siberia  —  as  if  that  made 
any  difference!  A  far  deeper  and  far  more 
searching  answer  must  be  given  —  and  rightly 
given  —  to  convince  a  Russian  revolutionist 
Perhaps  he  must  needs  be  taken  up  on  an  ex- 
ceeding high  mountain  and  shown  all  the  king- 
doms of  this  earth,  the  webs  of  our  destinies 
interlaced,  the  consequences  of  our  individual 
acts  going  far  down  into  ourselves,  but  also 
far  out  to  infinite  space,  involving  others  as 


OF   JUSTIFIABLE   HOMICIDE  171 

they  go.  Even  then  the  task  of  answering 
him  will  not  be  easy,  for  his  poor  mind  has 
been  cruelly  warped  and  blistered  by  oppres- 
sion. It  was  a  task  quite  too  much  for  Lau- 
rence Irving.  He  could  convince  us  that  old 
Gromoff  was  a  swine,  but  he  could  not  con- 
vince Rodion  that  he  had  no  right  to  kill 
him.  He  could  not  adequately  meet  his  moral 
issue. 

And  it  makes  not  the  slightest  difference 
whether  the  faults  of  his  play  are  the  faults  of 
Dostoieffski's  novel,  "  Crime  and  Punish- 
ment," or  not.  It  was  his  business  to  make  a 
drama,  not  to  photograph  a  book.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  the  book  is  at  once  a  minute  picture 
of  Russian  life  and  a  minute  study  in  morbid 
psychology;  it  is  not  dramatic,  and  it  differs 
materially  in  incident  from  the  play.  It  need 
not  be  considered  here  at  all.  Mr.  Irving's 
drama  is  not  likely  to  occupy  a  very  prominent 
place  in  Mr.  Sothern's  repertoire,  though  he 
will  possibly  continue  to  present  it  now  and 
then.  For  if  it  has  failed  as  a  play  it  has  not 
failed  as  a  means  of  showing  the  actor  in  a 
new  and  striking  impersonation,  one  that 
marks  a  broadening  of  his  scope,  a  deepening 
of  his  powers.  It  was  Rodion  s  theory  that 
the  moral  conviction  of  the  man  who  mur- 
ders for  love  of  Humanity  is  a  stronger  asset 
against  detection  than  the  nervous  insensibility 


172     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

of  the  real  criminal.  Mr.  Sothern  was  called 
upon  to  suggest,  then,  the  sufferings  and  the 
mental  conditions  of  a  high-strung,  intensely 
nervous  young  man  who  has  done  a  physically 
horrible  thing  which  has  shattered  all  the 
lower  centers  of  his  being,  while  the  higher 
centers  —  his  will  and  his  moral  sense  —  re- 
main untouched.  It  was  a  curious  and  a  fasci- 
nating problem  the  actor  faced,  and  he  met  it 
resourcefully  and  well.  The  quivering  nerves, 
the  tortured  imaginings,  the  ordinary  processes 
of  thought  and  suggestion  completely  over- 
thrown by  what  he  had  done  he  suggested  with 
almost  painful  fidelity.  He  seemed  always 
trembling  on  the  verge  of  collapse,  almost  tor- 
tured beyond  endurance.  And  yet  he  sug- 
gested, also,  the  indomitable  will  and  fiery 
purpose  of  this  young  idealist,  the  splendid 
heart  below  the  querulous  outbreaks  of  nerv- 
ous passion  and  the  bloody  deed;  the  fighting- 
intellect,  too,  that  resisted  the  Magistrate  till 
the  last.  In  his  Malvolio,  Mr.  Sothern  showed 
the  rare  ability  he  possesses  of  suggesting,  be- 
neath an  exterior  however  grotesque,  an  innate 
nobility.  Again,  as  Lord  Dundreary,  the  gentle- 
man behind  the  "  silly  ass  "  was  never  quite 
lost  to  sight.  The  outer  aspect  of  both  these 
characters  is  comic.  The  outer  aspect  of 
Rodion  is  tragic.  Mr.  Sothern  has  shown 
that  he  can  sustain  both  aspects  on  a  plane  of 


OF   JUSTIFIABLE   HOMICIDE  173 

splendid  dignity.  And  as  Rodion  his  expendi- 
ture of  obvious  method  was  less  than  it  has 
ever  been  before,  his  art  more  artless.  It  is  a 
long  road  from  Zenda  to  modern  St.  Peters- 
burg. Our  hats  should  go  off  to  the  actor  who, 
in  defiance  of  profits,  has  made  the  journey. 


OUR  LEADING  ACTOR 

THE  attempts  to  place  the  late  Richard 
Mansfield  in  a  fixed  artistic  position 
ought  to  be  a  sufficient  warning  against 
that  sort  of  criticism.  He  was  the  greatest  actor 
in  America;  he  was  the  worst  actor  in  Amer- 
ica. And  one  critic,  dodging  the  issue,  an- 
nounced that  there  were  three  kinds  of  actors, 
good,  bad,  and  Richard  Mansfield.  Yet  there 
is  an  eternal  fascination  to  the  human  mind  in 
putting  people  into  niches,  in  weighing  genius 
in  a  balance  and  placing  a  tag  upon  it.  Heine 
said:  "Nothing  is  more  foolish  than  the 
query,  Which  poet  is  greater  than  the  other? 
Flame  is  flame  and  its  weight  cannot  be  deter- 
mined in  pounds  and  ounces.  Only  a  narrow, 
shopkeeper  mind  will  attempt  to  weigh  genius 
in  its  miserable  cheese  scales."  But  Heine  said 
this  just  after  he  had  remarked  that  Cervantes, 
Shakespeare,  and  Goethe  were  the  great  trium- 
virate of  poets !  And  since  the  deaths  of  Joseph 
Jefferson  and  Richard  Mansfield  it  has  oc- 
curred to  many  people  to  inquire.  Who  is  our 
leading  actor?  Probably  if  a  vote  could  be 
taken  on  such  a  question  public  choice  would 
fall  on  E.  H.  Sothern,  who  has  for  many  years 


OUR   LEADING   ACTOR  175 

been  universally  popular  and  who  has  more  re- 
cently devoted  a  large  share  of  his  energies 
to  what  is  best  and  finest  in  the  drama.  At 
the  risk  of  weighing  genius  in  our  cheese  scales 
let  us  see  what  claims  Mr.  Sothern  has  to  this 
proud  eminence. 

In  pessimistic  moments  perhaps  it  seems  as 
if  his  chief  claim  were  based  on  the  fact  that 
there  are  so  few  to  dispute  the  pedestal  with 
him.  David  Warfield,  Henry  Miller,  Otis 
Skinner,  Robert  B.  Mantell?  These,  but  who 
else?  Difficult  as  it  is  to  express  satisfactorily 
in  words,  we  all  have  a  pretty  definite  concep- 
tion in  our  minds  of  that  peculiar  quality  in 
an  actor  which  raises  him  above  his  fellows 
and  makes  him  the  master  of  our  emotions.  It 
is  an  ease  and  certainty  of  technique;  it  is  a 
fluency  and  largeness  of  voice  and  manner; 
it  is  a  comfortable  assurance  of  power  in  re- 
serve and  the  ability  to  meet  whatever  demands 
may  arise;  and,  comprising,  yet  going  beyond 
these  things,  it  is  a  personal  sincerity  and 
eloquence,  a  sense  of  the  man  behind  the  mask, 
of  a  mind  and  heart  large,  energetic,  purpose- 
ful and  strong.  Personality  in  this  sense  is  a 
far  different  thing  from  the  "  personality " 
of  the  young  player  who  trades  on  a  pretty 
face  or  a  pleasant  smile;  and  it  can  no  more 
be  divorced  from  acting  than  from  any  other 
branch  of  art,  or  from  life  itself.    And,  judged 


176    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

by  this  conception  of  greatness,  the  pedestal  of 
preeminence  would  surely  not  be  overcrowded 
were  we  to  place  all  Mr.  Sothern's  rivals  upon 
it,  beside  him.  The  group  would  not  resemble 
the  hosts  of  Artaxerxes.  However,  as  each 
of  his  rivals  seems  lacking  in  one  or  more  of 
the  qualities  that  go  to  make  up  Mr.  Sothern's 
artistic  equipment,  perhaps  it  is  only  fair  to  give 
him  the  benefit  of  his  versatility,  and  if  pos- 
sible his  lone  place  at  the  top  of  the  group.  He 
would  be  the  last  to  want  this  position  if  he 
did  not  deserve  it,  and  the  last  to  intimate  that 
the  way  was  barred  to  any  other  to  reach  a 
place  by  his  side.  If  certain  of  his  rivals  could 
widen  their  repertoires  and  give  rein  to  their 
own  artistic  impulses  instead  of  dwelling  year 
in  and  year  out  with  a  single  part  or  two,  his 
place,  even  to-day,  might  be  far  less  secure. 

Comparisons  are  odorous  chiefly  to  super- 
sensitive noses.  Mr.  Warfield  and  his  real 
friends  will  not  smell  out  offence  in  the  state- 
ment that  until  he  has  played  a  larger  number 
and  a  wider  range  of  parts  than  Levi,  Von  Bar- 
wig  and  JVes'  Bigelow  his  position  must  re- 
main below  Mr.  Sothern's.  Granville  Barker, 
during  a  trip  to  New  York  to  decide  that  he 
did  n't  want  to  be  director  of  the  New  Theater, 
visited  the  Stuyvesant  Theater  and  came  away 
to  talk  about  "  Warfield's  marvelous  tech- 
nique."    It  is  marvelous.     Within  the  narrow 


OUR   LEADING   ACTOR  177 

bounds  of  the  characters  he  has  so  far  played 
it  seems  almost  flawless.  And  no  acting  on 
our  stage  to-day  can  compare  with  Mr.  War- 
field's  for  immediate  emotional  effect.  But 
does  Mr.  Warfield  create  the  impression  of  an 
amplitude  of  power  sufficient  to  compass  other 
and  more  poetic,  more  imaginative,  more  in- 
tellectual roles?  Perfect  as  he  is  in  his  genre, 
has  he  yet  demonstrated  the  larger  gifts  to  give 
us  a  figure  like  Don  Quixote?  Hardly.  After 
he  has  played  Shy  lock  (and  his  Shy  lock  is 
going  to  restore  a  fund  of  comedy  to  the  old 
play  that  will  be  a  revelation,  unless  all  signs 
fail)  perhaps  Mr.  Warfield's  name  will  have 
to  be  written  larger.  That  is  everybody's 
hope. 

Henry  Miller's  contribution  to  the  contem- 
porary stage  has  been  of  late  rather  stage 
management  than  acting.  Not  to  forget  his 
very  human  and  illuminating  performance  as 
Stephen  Ghent,  the  total  effect  of  "  The  Great 
Divide "  was  more  striking  than  any  single 
performance  in  it.  The  ensemble  of  "  The 
Servant  in  the  House  "  is  another  triumph  for 
his  skill.  In  this  generation,  when  a  system 
that  boasts  it  has  put  our  theater  "  on  a  busi- 
ness basis  "  has  in  fifteen  years  been  unable 
to  discover  or  train  a  single  stage  manager 
worthy  of  the  name,  such  a  genius  as  Mr. 
Miller's  is  not  lightly  to  be  passed  over.     A 


178    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

good  stage  manager  needs  imagination  quite 
as  much  as  the  actor,  and  imagination  of  a 
wider  and  more  comprehensive  kind,  to  see 
not  one  part,  but  all  parts,  to  dream  the  struc- 
ture out  of  the  blocks.  Mr.  Miller  is,  indeed, 
so  good  a  stage  manager  that  he  realizes  bet- 
ter than  any  of  our  players,  save  Mrs.  Fiske, 
how  much  the  spirit  of  the  stage  has  changed, 
how  now  the  good  actor  is  representative,  a 
medium  for  the  author's  meaning,  not  a  figure 
to  strut  impressively  in  the  lime-light.  Mr. 
Miller  is  putting  on  good  plays,  and  putting 
them  on  well,  putting  them  on  better,  in  fact, 
than  any  other  manager.  Just  now,  in  an  age 
when  ignorant  vulgarians  dominate  our  stage 
from  their  Broadway  business  offices  Mr.  Mil- 
ler's influence  for  good  can  hardly  be  over- 
estimated. But  in  the  present  instance  we  are 
estimating  acting  only,  not  stage  management; 
and  as  an  actor,  Henry  Miller  surely  lacks 
something  of  the  charm  and  grace  that  Mr. 
Sothern  commands. 

If  exuberant  vitality  and  ease,  grace  and 
fluency  of  diction  were  the  sole  test,  Otis 
Skinner  would  easily  carry  off  the  palm. 
How  much  Mr.  Sothern's  Hamlet  would  gain 
by  the  other  man's  sheer  physical  vitality 
in  a  climax  and  his  triumphant  elocution! 
There  is  promise,  too,  in  Mr.  Skinner's  past. 
In  Bowker's   "  Francesca "   he   was   a   figure 


OUR   LEADING   ACTOR  179 

to  be  remembered.  There  is  never  any  doubt 
of  his  reserve  power  or  his  fund  of  resource- 
ful technique.  And  he  has  a  mind  of  no  com- 
mon order.  Yet  Mr.  Skinner  comes  to  us 
year  after  year  always  in  a  new  play  —  one 
play,  and  not  always  a  good  play.  He  has  for 
us  no  repertoire,  no  characters  peculiarly  and 
affectionately  associated  with  himself.  That 
is  partly  our  fault,  for  we  have  been  altogether 
too  long,  in  New  York  at  any  rate,  in  appre- 
ciating Otis  Skinner  at  his  real  value.  No 
actor,  whether  his  own  manager  or  not,  ean 
afford  the  productions  and  company  for  a 
repertoire  unless  his  public  following  is  ex- 
tensive. Mr.  Skinner  and  his  manager  prom- 
ise better  things  for  him  in  the  future.  But 
at  present  his  leadership  is  not  complete. 

Robert  B.  Mantell  is  conserving  "  the  classic 
repertoire."  Dear  old  "  classic  repertoire," 
thrice  blessed,  admired,  never  to  be  too  much 
praised,  tiresome  old  "  classic  repertoire," 
how  many  crimes  have  been  committed  in  thy 
name!  For  it  is  a  crime  to  be  dull;  it  is  the 
one  artistic  sin  for  which  there  is  no  forgive- 
ness nor  a  drop  of  water  in  hell.  Many  a  play- 
wright down  below  sits  on  a  red  hot  stove 
reading  his  own  dull  plays  while  a  little  devil 
prods  him  with  especial  good  will  to  keep  him 
awake.  And  some  of  these  playwrights  bear 
names  not  unknown  to  the  text-books.     Yet 


180    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

somebody  has  got  to  conserve  the  "  classic 
repertoire."  Aye,  as  long  as  the  race  shall 
last  that  repertoire  must  be  kept  alive;  say 
what  we  will,  think  what  we  will,  deeper  than 
speech  or  thought  in  us  is  an  instinct  which 
demands  it.  And  just  now  we  are  offering  up 
Mr.  Mantell  on  the  altar  of  our  instinct.  We 
ought  to  be  grateful.  Probably  we  are.  Mr. 
Mantell  has  a  fine  voice  and  a  big  presence 
and  a  grasp  on  the  traditional  requirements 
and  means  of  expression  of  the  "  classic  reper- 
toire." He  is  doing  his  task  admirably.  But 
there  is  a  drama  of  to-day  and  of  to-morrow 
that  interests  us.  A  leader  must  know  of  that 
drama  too,  must  interpret  and  shape  it  for  us. 

There  is  one  actor  who  does,  and  she  is  an 
actress  —  Mrs.  Fiske.  Easily  the  foremost 
of  our  women  players,  everything  that  can  be 
done  with  the  head  she  does,  and  some  things 
that  the  head  cannot  do.  Her  Tess,  her  Becky 
Sharp,  her  Hedda  Gahler  were  figures  that 
will  live  in  the  memory  of  those  who  saw  them 
as  long  as  life  lasts.  It  may  be  her  appeal  is 
too  dominantly  intellectual  to  command  the 
widest  public  following;  but  a  wide  following 
is  not  always  essential  for  a  leader.  Certainly 
Mrs.  Fiske,  both  as  actress  and  producer, 
fighting  against  heavy  odds,  has  been  a  pio- 
neer, has  warred  on  the  side  of  progress,  has 
done  as  much  as  any  other  single  person  in 


OUR   LEADING   ACTOR  181 

the  American  theater  to  keep  our  standards  up 
above  the  dust  of  dollars  where  the  Powers 
that  produce  forever  strive  to  drag  them. 
Mrs.  Fiske  has  done  a  man's  work  in  our  the- 
ater, and  done  it  better  than  most  men ;  which 
is  humbly  submitted  to  the  Suffragettes  for  an 
argument!  But  still  we  cannot  quite  bring 
ourselves  to  the  point  of  making  a  hard  and 
fast  comparison  between  an  actress  and  an 
actor,  of  weighing  Tess  and  Don  Quixote  in 
the  same  cheese  scales.  Something  still  in- 
heres in  the  masculine  art  of  more  dominant 
power,  if  not  of  more  perfect  workmanship, 
that  makes  us  turn  instinctively  to  it  for  lead- 
ership, and  forbids  the  comparison.  Is  this  a 
shocking  confession?  None  the  less  it  must 
stand. 

So  we  come  to  E.  H.  Sothern,  who  lingered 
in  New  York  to  produce  "  Don  Quixote  "  at 
great  expense  when  he  might  have  been 
playing  "  Dundreary  "  on  the  road  to  $16,000 
a  week.  (Indeed,  his  last  week  of  "  Dun- 
dreary"  in  Boston  brought  him  $20,000.) 
One  of  those  neat  little  critical  bromides  is, 
"  Mr.  Sothern  is  essentially  a  comedian."  Mr. 
Sothern  is  essentially  a  conscientious  and 
painstaking  and  ambitious  artist.  In  the  days 
of  "  Zenda  "  and  "  An  Enemy  of  the  King," 
when  a  thousand  girlish  hearts  beat  high  at 
every  matinee  and  sweet  young  things  averred 


182   THE   .\MERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

that  they  "  could  die  listening  to  Sothern  say 
'  Darling! '  "  it  was  perhaps  fortunate  for  him 
that  he  was  a  comedian.  He  escaped  a  trag- 
edy. He  weathered  the  perils  of  picture  book 
romance  and  rode  out  upon  the  great,  deep  sea 
of  "  Hamlet."  Then  came  the  engagement 
with  Miss  Marlowe,  which  bettered  his  elocu- 
tion, as  an  engagement  with  Miss  Marlowe 
must  do  for  any  player,  and  widened  the  field 
for  his  achievement  and  ambition.  Since 
then  Mr.  Sothern  has  shown  no  sign  of  paus- 
ing and  his  acting  has  steadily  deepened  in 
truth  and  power.  His  Hamlet  has  mellowed, 
grown  sweeter,  graver,  more  thoughtful  and 
more  elastic  in  its  lighter  moods.  There  are 
touches  of  poetry  in  his  Villon  that  were  not 
there  five  years  ago.  And  in  his  newer  parts, 
even  when  the  plays  have  failed,  he  has  dis- 
closed new  powers  as  an  actor. 

As  Rodion  in  ''  The  Fool  Hath  Said, 
There  is  no  God,"  he  was  called  on  to  sug- 
gest a  mental  struggle,  a  tortured  mind  in 
combat  with  an  iron  will.  And  he  suggested 
it  surely,  vividly,  and  without  the  sense  of 
efTort  that  has  sometimes  been  apparent  in 
liis  acting.  And  he  turned  from  the  comic 
absurdities  of  Dundreary  to  do  this  thing. 
As  Don  Quixote  he  had  a  more  difficult  task, 
that  of  making  plausible  and  appealing  in  the 
flesh  one  of  the  greatest  figures  in  literature, 


OUR   LEADING   ACTOR  183 

a  figure  already  created  in  the  imagination 
of  his  audience  and  set  in  a  place  apart.  To 
perform  this  task  required  imagination  of 
him  and  a  fine  understanding  of  Cervantes's 
Knight,  and  eloquence  and  technique.  He 
struck  the  right  note  at  once  with  his  make-up, 
the  lean,  pathetic,  middle-aged  figure,  the  wild, 
bright,  vision-haunted  eyes,  the  hollow  cheeks 
—  at  once  grotesque  and  sad.  And  through 
all  the  comic  absurdities  of  the  part  and  the 
farcical  episodes  of  the  play  he  never  for  one 
instant  offended  the  lover  of  Cervantes's  Sor- 
rowful Knight,  because  his  Don  never  for  one 
instant  lost  his  pathetic  dignity,  his  chivalrous 
bearing  born  of  a  beautiful  and  chivalrous 
soul.  There  are  times  in  life  when  you  laugh 
at  Cervantes's  book;  there  are  other  times 
when  you  weep.  At  moments  of  Mr.  Sothern's 
performance  you  know  both  moods  —  when  he 
accepts  the  Duke's  ironic  invitation  with  a 
sweet  courtesy  Mallory  might  have  envied, 
when  he  sits  dejected  in  his  cage,  "  a  captured 
eagle,"  the  scoffers  cry,  but  how  much  more 
like  a  captured  eagle  than  they  guess! 

There  is  hardly  a  passage  in  all  literature, 
unless  it  be  the  parting  of  Launcelot  and  Guen- 
ever  in  Mallory,  to  equal  for  pure  pathos  the 
overthrow  of  Don  Quixote  by  the  Knight  of 
the  Silver  Moon.  "  Dulcinea  is  the  fairest 
woman  in  the  world,   and  I  the  unhappiest 


184     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

knight  on  earth;  but  it  is  not  meet  that  my 
weakness  should  disown  this  truth.  Strike 
with  your  lance,  Sir  Knight ! "  For  some 
strange  reason,  in  the  play  it  was  not  the 
Knight  of  the  Silver  Moon  who  vanquished  the 
Don.  His  shield  bore  red  crosses,  like  a  pack- 
age of  surgeon's  plaster.  And  it  was  inevita- 
ble that  the  pathos  be  less  poignant.  Yet  Mr. 
Sothern's  cry,  ''  Dulcinea  is  the  fairest  woman 
in  the  world !  "  rose  faintly  above  the  stage 
hubbub  with  a  stab  of  eloquence,  and  the  es- 
sential meaning,  the  tragedy  and  poetry  of  the 
overthrow  were  borne  home  to  every  heart, 
though  everything  till  then  had  been  but  farce 
to  many  in  the  audience.  The  capacity  to 
achieve  an  effect  like  that  belongs  only  to  the 
few.     It  stamps  its  possessor  as  a  leader. 

Mr.  Sothern's  repertoire  during  the  season 
of  1907-8  included  ''  Hamlet,"  a  Shakespear- 
ian classic ;  "  Lord  Dundreary,"  a  specimen  of 
early  mid-Victorian  drama  and  a  monument 
to  his  father;  "If  I  Were  King,"  a  modern 
romantic  play ;  "  The  Fool  Hath  Said,"  a  psy- 
chological drama ;  and  ''  Don  Quixote,"  an 
attempt  by  an  American  playwright,  Paul 
Kester,  to  give  stage  life  to  a  great  figure  of 
world  literature.  He  staged  all  these  plays 
himself,  sufficiently  sumptuously  and  with  in- 
telligent feeling  for  their  different  atmos- 
pheres and  demands.    To  present  them  all  he 


OUR   LEADING   ACTOR  185 

had  to  train  and  maintain  a  large  company, 
at  considerable  expense.  That  Mr.  Sothern's 
acting  is  without  faults  or  that  it  realizes  to 
the  full  his  own  or  his  critics'  ideal  nobody  will 
maintain.  He  still  tends  always  to  drag  his 
tempo.  He  still  falls  into  his  old  tricks  now 
and  then  of  recurring  over-emphasis,  produc- 
ing an  artificial  and  monotonous  effect.  He 
still  lacks  sometimes  what  seems  almost  a  phys- 
ical vitality  to  master  a  climax  or  sweep  a 
speech  up  to  the  point  of  emotional  discharge. 
You  have  that  indescribable  feeling  inside  of 
you  as  you  listen  of  something  rising,  rising, 
rising,  and  not  quite  getting  there  —  an  un- 
comfortable feeling  of  almost.  But  he  is  an 
actor  whose  command  of  his  art  is  constantly 
growing,  whose  devotion  to  it,  and  to  the  best 
in  the  drama,  is  deep,  vigilant,  and  sincere,  and 
whose  repertoire  and  achievement  are  already 
wider,  more  varied  and  more  stimulating  to 
all  classes  than  that  of  any  other  American 
actor.  The  best  that  we  can  wish  for  him  and 
for  ourselves  is  that  he  may  have  to  fight  per- 
petually to  maintain  his  leadership. 


FALLING    IN     LOVE     WITH     ONE'S 
WIFE 

(Empire,  August  31,  1907) 

IT  all  happened  because  Mme.  Dupre  did  n't 
read  the  "  Ladies'  Home  Journal."  Had 
she  done  so  she  would  have  known  that 
there  are  certain  things  all  young  girls  should 
know,  preferably  from  the  lips  of  their  moth- 
ers. And  thus  enlightened,  little  Trixie  Dupre 
would  hardly  have  entered  into  the  matrimon- 
ial state  with  her  guardian,  Gerald  Evers- 
leigh,  so  lightly,  nor  been  so  willing  to  go  into 
a  dark  room  for  developing  purposes  with  M. 
Valhoure  (was  there  not  a  pun  in  the  French 
original?)  nor  otherwise  comported  herself 
in  a  manner  rather  hard  to  reconcile  even  with 
an  age  before  apples  were  a  table  fruit.  As 
Cayley  Drummle  told  Tanqueray,  "  Of  all 
forms  of  innocence,  mere  ignorance  is  the  least 
admirable."  Certainly,  seriously  considered, 
"  My  Wife,"  an  adaptation  from  the  French 
of  Gavault  and  Charnay,  by  Michael  Morton, 
and  shown  for  the  first  time  in  America  at  the 
Empire  Theater  by  John  Drew,  tends  to  prove 
Cayley  entirely  in  the  right. 


FALLING   IN   LOVE  WITH  ONE'S  WIFE   187 

However,  nobody  but  a  moralist  would  seri- 
ously consider  this  Britonized  ebullition  of  the 
French  sense  of  humor.  It  is  a  pretty  safe 
guess  that  in  the  original  Trixie's  blind  inno- 
cence of  ignorance  was  taken  for  granted  as  a 
working  hypothesis  (it  was  pragmatically  true, 
because  it  worked  well  in  the  play,  to  be  learned 
in  the  advanced  philosophy!).  And,  in  the 
original,  doubtless  the  fun  of  the  piece  was 
largely  drawn  from  the  efforts  of  the  Gerald 
of  the  English  version  to  keep  his  ward  away 
from  his  mistress;  and  later  from  her  naive 
betrayals  of  her  ignorance  of  the  meaning 
of  matrimony.  Readers  of  Guy  de  Maupas- 
sant know  that  French  literature  is  quite  cap- 
able of  extracting  humor  from  this  sort  of 
thing,  and  though  the  English  adapter  has 
converted  the  mistress  into  an  actress  of 
passable  propriety  and  toned  down  the  naive 
betrayals  of  Trixie  into  the  least  compass 
possible,  his  plot  still  rests  on  Trixie's  igno- 
rance, and  we  must  do  him  the  kindness  to 
grant  him  his  hypotheses.  Some  literal- 
minded  souls  will  still  fail  to  find  it  shriek- 
ingly  funny  that  a  girl  of  eighteen,  even 
though  she  has  been  brought  up  in  France, 
can  have  been  married  a  month  without  real- 
izing the  oddity  in  the  world's  eyes  of  sepa- 
rate suites  or  the  impropriety  of  showing 
ardent  letters  from  a  lover.     But  why  worry 


188     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

over  the  literal-minded?  They  do  enough 
worrying  themselves,  goodness  knows! 

Granted  Trixie's  innocence,  then,  and  here 
is  what  happened  in  the  English  version: 
Trixie  Diiprc,  aged  eighteen,  had  to  be  married 
within  six  weeks  or  lose  a  fortune  left  by  an 
old  maid  aunt.  Dupre  pere  wished  her  to 
marry  So  and  So,  but  she  loved  Rene  Falan- 
dres,  whom  Pere  Dupre  did  not  approve.  So 
she  came  to  her  guardian's  flat,  while  he  was 
entertaining  an  actress  at  supper,  with  a  plan 
of  action.  It  was  no  less  than  a  marriage  with 
this  guardian,  Gerald  Ever  sleigh  (a  confirmed 
London  bachelor),  to  be  annulled  by  divorce 
when  Rene  returned  from  a  trip  to  foreign 
parts.  That  would  save  the  fortune  and  give 
her  Rene  as  well.  Gerald  finally  was  forced 
into  acceding  to  her  weird  proposal,  and  the 
second  act  shows  them  in  a  Swiss  hotel  on 
their  "  honeymoon."  Here  Trixie  carries  on 
with  every  man  in  sight,  to  the  demolition  of 
her  husband's  British  dignity,  forces  him  into 
a  duel,  and  when  Pere  and  Mere  Dupre  finally 
arrive  on  the  scene  gives  the  whole  scheme 
away  by  naively  sympathizing  with  her  hus- 
band because  he  has  no  view  of  Mount  Blanc 
from  his  chamber  window.  That  sends  Gerald 
back  to  London  in  disgust,  leaving  the  girl 
with  her  parents. 

But  her  parents  then  forsake  her  too,  so  she 


FALLING   IN   LOVE  WITH   ONE'S   WIFE    189 

flies  to  Gerald  just  as  he  has  another  of  those 
nice  Httle  dinners  arranged,  so  dear  to  every 
bachelor,  as  every  playgoer  knows.  Gerald, 
forgetting  that  he  is  really  but  holding  her  in 
trust  for  Rene  (they  did  these  things  better 
in  the  old  Welsh  days;  see  book  one  of  the 
Mabinogion),  finds  he  loves  her  after  all,  and 
kisses  her  for  the  first  time  on  the  mouth. 
He  has  fallen  in  love  with  his  own  wife,  which 
seems  always  to  be  an  hilarious  idea  in  the 
French  drama.  Rene  comes  back,  and  in  an 
amusing  scene  where  each  man  entirely  mis- 
understands the  other  finally  manages  to  make 
it  known  that  his  heart  has  changed:  he  met 
a  new  love  in  Morocco,  to  be  precise  (again 
we  recall  Maupassant),  so  there  is  no  divorce, 
and  presumably  Gerald  eventually  sees  Mount 
Blanc. 

Such  is  the  story,  a  Gallic  morsel  of  farce, 
flimsy,  unreal,  with  much  of  its  fun  inevitably 
gone.  Probably  even  in  France  much  de- 
pended on  the  actors ;  here,  much  more  depended 
on  them.  In  London,  it  is  said,  the  required 
crispness,  speed  and  verve  were  imparted,  and 
the  role  of  Gibby,  friend  of  Gerald,  a  stupid, 
sleepy-headed,  good-hearted  young  nobleman, 
something  between  a  silly  ass  and  a  musical 
comedy  Tom  Pinch,  was  played  by  an  artist 
who  made  it  stand  up  above  the  others  and  kept 
the  house  in  a  roar.     But  this  conception  of 


190     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

the  part  was  too  much  for  Ferdinand  Gotts- 
chalk,  who  played  it  in  his  usual  fussy,  eccen- 
tric manner,  not  at  all  suggestive  of  nobility, 
and  rather  more  of  insolence  than  indolence. 
He  was  amusing  at  times;  but  then  again  at 
times  he  was  n't,  and  those  times  stuck  out. 
Miss  Billie  Burke,  a  little  English  ingenue  im- 
ported to  play  Trixie,  displayed  the  dearest 
profile  on  Broadway,  but  a  very  monotonous 
and  sophisticated  imitation  of  innocence.  Pos- 
sibly nobody  could  play  the  part  with  complete 
satisfaction  after  her  sixth  year.  As  for  the 
rest  of  the  cast,  they  labored  ponderously 
where  speed,  crispness,  the  Gallic  Touch,  was 
their  only  salvation.  Mr.  Drew  himself,  of 
course,  as  Gerald,  is  much  too  expert  an  actor 
thus  to  err.  He  was  crisp,  polished,  effective; 
he  carried  the  climaxes  single  handed.  He  was 
the  jolly  bachelor,  he  was  the  indignant  hus- 
band, finally  he  was  the  almost  ardent  lover. 
It  is  always  a  bit  hard  for  Mr.  Drew  to  be  ar- 
dent in  a  play  —  and  "  My  Wife  "  is  only  a 
farce,  after  all.  But  he  labored  in  rather  a 
barren  vineyard.  His  talents  are  worthy  a 
more  significant  vehicle,  and  there  were  mo- 
ments on  the  stage  when  he  could  be  fancied 
as  thinking  so,  too. 


CURING   A    PESSIMIST 

(Lyric,  September  16,  1907) 

"  The  drama  was  supposed  to  be  written  in  blank  verse,  that 
is,  good,  wholesome,  commonplace  language  the  wrong  end 
foremost,  after  the  manner  of  Sheridan  Knowles." 

[From  "Thirty  Years  passed  among  the  Players,"  by  Joe 
Cowell,  Comedian:  New  York,  1844.] 

WE  met  our  friend  the  Pessimist,  who 
usually  has  a  grouch  on  the  capaci- 
ties of  the  dramatic  form,  and  he 
was  smiling  blandly. 

'*  What  is  this  ?  "  we  cried.    "  An  accident  ?  " 

"  Oh,"  said  he,  "  one  cannot  remain  pessi- 
mistic all  the  time,  even  in  a  community  of 
optimists !  Besides,  I  've  seen  James  O'Neill's 
revival  of  *  Virginius.'  " 

"  And  that  makes  you  more  hopeful  about 
the  stage?  " 

**  Infinitely,"  he  answered,  "  infinitely.  I  am 
always  more  hopeful  of  the  future  when  I  get 
a  good  dose  of  the  past.  That  makes  you  sure 
history  can't  repeat  itself;  it  could  do  nothing 
so  bad  again.  Did  it  ever  strike  you  that  Dar- 
win ought  to  have  been  the  most  cheerful  of 
men?    He  was  confident  of  the  infinite  inferi- 


192     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

ority  of  his  ancestors,  and  didn't  pretend  to 
like  Shakespeare." 

"  Come,  come,"  said  we,  "  leave  that  latter 
pose  to  G.  B.  S." 

The  Pessimist  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "  As 
you  like,"  he  said,  ''  though  I  don't  see  why 
he  should  have  the  enjoyment  of  it  all  to  him- 
self. It 's  rather  a  nice  pose,  a  kind  of  literary 
blasphemy  that  helps  the  soul  a  whole  lot.  But 
will  you?  " 

He  pointed  toward  a  door.  We  would,  so 
he  led  the  way,  and  after  he  had  shaken  hands 
with  a  press  agent  and  nodded  to  an  actor  and 
spoken  a  word  well  understood  by  the  waiter, 
qualified  by  the  adjective  "  two,"  he  pointed 
to  a  portrait  of  Forrest  on  the  wall,  then 
brought  his  fist  down  on  the  table  and  forth- 
with delivered  himself  of  the  following  re- 
markable discourse.  We  set  it  down  as  nearly 
as  possible  verbatim.  A  phrase  here  and  there 
may  be  our  own,  to  cover  a  slip  in  memory, 
and  there  were  interruptions  caused  by  the  re- 
curring visitations  of  the  waiter  which  are  not 
indicated.  In  substance,  however,  what  he 
said  may  here  be  found,  though  without,  alas! 
the  peculiar  nasal  twang  of  his  utterance  in 
excited  moments,  an  outcropping,  we  suspect, 
of  New  England  ancestry. 

"You  see  that  man  Forrest?"  he  began. 
"  What  do  you  suppose  his  effect  would  be  on 


CURING  A   PESSIMIST  193 

an  audience  to-day  if  he  came  back  in  his  old 
repertoire?  Dickens  once  remarked  on  the 
pattern  of  Macready's  waistcoat,  '  such  a 
happy  combination  is  not  Hkely  to  occur  again.' 
Probably  not;  styles  have  changed  in  waist- 
coats. When  Joseph  Kilgour  appeared  in  '  The 
Movers '  with  a  pink  one  the  stage  manager 
had  a  fit  and  the  audience  tittered  with  derisive 
mirth.  But  would  Macready's  acting  be  any 
less  out  of  date  than  his  waistcoat?  Some 
things  about  it,  I  grant  you,  would  be  fresh  and 
true  —  enunciation,  vocal  technique,  imagina- 
tion, the  unified  conception  of  character  that 
subordinates  all  details  to  the  central  idea,  all 
that  belongs  to  the  art  of  acting  everywhere 
for  all  time.  But  the  old  school  lung  power 
standard  for  heroism,  how  would  that  strike 
us  now?  As  ridiculous,  I  tell  you,  simply 
ridiculous!  You  remember  how  Kean  used  to 
terrify  even  the  members  of  his  company  by 
the  indescribable  violence  of  his  performance 
as  Shylock,  and  how  Macready  before  he  went 
on  for  Shylock's  great  scene  would  brandish 
a  heavy  ladder  in  the  wings,  uttering  oaths 
meanwhile,  to  work  himself  up  into  a  state  of 
panting  rage.  These  old  actors  used  to  grasp 
their  audiences  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck  and 
haul  them  up  into  a  pitch  of  emotional  excite- 
ment. To  be  heroic  was  to  appear  six  feet  tall, 
with  a  distorted  face  and  the  voice  of  a  mad 

IS 


194    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

megaphone.  Tragedy  was  all  fire  and  thunder 
and  reverberating  blank  verse.  They  did  n't 
impersonate  human  beings,  these  men  —  they 
impersonated  volcanic  eruptions:  Edwin  For- 
rest played  Vesuvius,  not  Virginins.  And  shall 
we  suppose  that  we  change  our  style  of  waist- 
coat but  go  right  on  being  contented  with  the 
same  old  style  of  dramatic  wear,  which  is  so 
much  more  important  ?  " 

Here  we  interrupted.  "  Is  it  so  much  more 
important?"  we  inquired.  "The  stage  is  but 
amusement,  while  our  waistcoats " 

"  Piffle !  "  said  the  Pessimist,  "  you  're  going 
to  quote  Carlyle,  and  I  won't  stand  it !  Under 
every  waistcoat  beats  a  heart,  and  behind  every 
drama  and  every  piece  of  acting  there  ought 
to  be  an  idea,  the  idea  of  representing  life  truly, 
sanely,  helpfully.  Now,  there  's  just  one  way 
to  do  that,  either  for  dramatist  or  actor  —  he 
must  follow  the  fashion  of  his  time.  As  Pin- 
ero,  in  an  address  on  Stevenson  as  a  dramatist, 
remarked,  there 's  at  least  one  sure  rule  in 
playmaking,  you  cannot  pour  new  wine  into 
old  bottles.  '  Virginius,'  for  instance,  is  a 
busted  old  bottle.  It  won't  hold  wine.  If 
somebody  should  write  a  play  to-day  just  like 
'  Virginius,'  every  bit  as  good  of  its  kind,  no- 
body would  go  to  see  it,  because  for  us  it 
would  n't  be  life,  it  would  be  hopelessly  stilted, 
artificial.     And  if  some  actor  should  arise  to 


CURING  A  PESSIMIST  195 

play  it  in  the  good  old  '  heroic '  fashion  he 
would  move  nobody  except,  perhaps,  some  old 
chap  who  lingers  into  the  Twentieth  Century 
from  ante-bellum  days,  because  now  we  do 
not  accept  such  acting  as  a  representation  of 
life;  so  how  can  we  be  expected  to  get  human 
emotions  from  beholding  it? 

"  Where  are  the  dramas  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century?  Just  three  of  them,  one  by  Gold- 
smith and  two  by  Sheridan,  have  survived  on 
the  boards.  Where  are  the  dramas  of  the  first 
half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century?  Go  and  see 
'  Virginius,'  smell  the  mould  upon  it  and  you 
will  be  answered.  Where  are  the  '  bread  and 
butter '  plays  of  Robertson,  those  plays  that 
swept  the  English  stage  like  wildfire  forty 
years  ago,  made  Lady  Bancroft  famous  and 
buried  a  bread  knife  in  the  heart  of  the  bombast 
drama  which  had  preceded  them?  Dead,  all 
dead.  '  Caste '  and  '  School '  and  the  rest  of 
them  would  seem  as  artificial  to  us  to-day  al- 
most as  '  Virginius.'  An  old  Norwegian  with 
whiskers,  pacing  up  and  down  till  he  wore  a 
path  in  the  carpet  planning  how  he  could  write 
a  play  without  a  soliloquy,  how  he  could  put 
life  on  the  stage  not  half  way  but  wholly,  not 
conventionally  but  significantly,  how  he  could 
make  the  drama  speak  as  much  with  the  voice 
of  authority  as  the  novel  or  the  poem,  did 
that !    Yes,  he  did  that,  and  the  English  critics 


196    THE   AMERICAN    STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

crucified  him,  or  tried  to,  when  he  got  trans- 
lated into  their  language.  But  it  was  too  late. 
The  new  bottle  was  made,  the  new  wine  of  the 
modern  world  went  into  it,  and  that  is  where 
we  go  now  for  our  drink.  Waiter,  the  same 
again ! 

"  Oh,  I  don't  mean,"  he  continued,  "  that 
only  the  plays  of  his  Whiskers  are  worth  while, 
or  that  all  plays  now  must  treat  of  his  subject 
matter.  The  world  is  wide  and  wherever  three 
are  gathered  together " 

"  One  of  them  a  woman?  "  we  interjected. 

"  As  you  like !  Wherever  three  are  gathered 
together  there  is  a  possible  drama.  What  I 
do  mean  is  that  to  this  modern  world  the  forms 
and  fashions  of  other  days  on  the  stage  have 
no  reality,  so  that  a  play  cast  in  their  mould  now 
has  no  reality  for  us  and  any  acting  in  it,  how- 
ever fine  according  to  the  old  standards  or  the 
new,  will  leave  us  cold  and  unmoved.  This 
talk  about  fine  acting  as  if  it  were  something 
that  can  be  divorced  from  the  play  makes  me 
tired.  Suppose  Sembrich  at  her  recital  should 
sing  '  Waltz  Me  Around  Again,  Willie,'  in  her 
very  best  voice,  with  all  her  exquisite  vocal 
art,  would  you  thrill  with  emotion  ?  You  might 
(if  you  knew  enough  about  singing)  admire 
intellectually  her  vocal  skill,  but  you  would 
wait  for  '  The  Miller  and  the  Brook,'  or  *  The 
Nut  Tree '  for  an  emotion.     Why  should  we 


CURING   A   PESSIMIST  197 

assume  that  acting  can  be  effective  or  worth 
while  in  a  play  which  is  not  true? 

"  I  '11  tell  you  why,  because  some  of  us  are 
still  children  in  the  theater.  We  lay  aside  with 
our  wraps  everything  but  our  '  primitive  cred- 
ulity '  and  tend  to  swallow  whatever  is  set  be- 
fore us  without  question.  We  like  this  or  that 
player  instinctively  for  his  personality.  We 
are  absorbed  in  the  story  the  play  tells  and 
what  the  story  is,  how  it  is  told,  whether  true 
or  false,  probable  or  improbable,  matters  very 
little.  That  is  why  Shakespeare,  who  has  lived 
because  of  his  truth  of  characterization  and 
his  masterly  skill  in  developing  his  plots  from 
this  characterization,  was  in  his  own  day  re- 
garded by  a  public  hungry  for  a  story  as  no 
better  perhaps  than  his  contemporaries.  That 
is  why  '  Virginius  '  could  be  hailed  as  a  great 
tragedy  in  verse  almost  at  the  very  hour  when 
Keats  and  Shelley  were  making  themselves 
immortal.  That  is  why  to-day  a  string  of 
rubbish,  false,  absurd,  silly,  like  '  Nancy  Brown 
of  Harvard  '  can  attract  big  audiences  and  only 
in  the  vicinity  of  Cambridge  a  vegetable. 
Harry  Woodruff  lies  on  his  stomach  under  a 
property  elm  reading  a  book  and  the  dear  girls 
go  into  ecstasies.  The  play  tells  a  false,  foolish 
story  and  the  dear  public  who  have  n't  been 
to  college  swallow  it  with  the  ready  faith  of 
children  listening  to  a  nursery  rhyme.     Is  it 


198    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

possible  that  a  second  jump  into  a  bram- 
ble bush  will  not  restore  the  wise  man's 
optics?  Of  course  it  isn't!  What  an  absurd 
idea !  " 

"  Still  we  're  not  all  like  that,  you  know," 
we  put  in  timidly. 

"  Of  course  we  're  not,  of  course  we  're 
not !  "  shouted  the  Pessimist.  "  Did  n't  you 
catch  me  smiling?  Do  you  suppose  I  'd  smile 
if  we  were?  Did  n't  the  public  forty  years  ago 
wake  up  and  hail  Robertson  ?  Why  ?  Because 
they  saw  real  doors  and  windows,  real  bread 
and  butter,  real  cups  and  saucers  on  the  stage, 
and  people  that  were  almost  real  too,  who 
talked  almost  real  language  and  had  almost 
real  emotions.  Then  at  last  the  audiences  be- 
gan to  have  almost  real  emotions  also.  It  was 
pretty  shallow  reality,  but  people  none  the  less 
began  to  suspect  that  the  stage,  instead  of 
being  something  apart  from  life,  could  be  a 
picture  of  and  commentary  upon  it.  The  lung 
power  tragedian  heard  his  death  knell.  Audi- 
ences had  begun  to  use  their  brains.  Did  n't 
Irving  himself,  though  he  arose  with  the  torch 
of  Macready,  have  to  find  for  himself  a  new 
style  of  expression  to  fit  the  new  ideas  until 
he  almost  revivified  dead  dramas  by  his  living 
way  of  playing  them?  No,  sir;  as  soon  as  the 
public  began  to  reflect  on  the  manner  of  telling 
the  story  there  was  revolution  all  along  the 


CURING   A   PESSIMIST  199 

line.     It  was  like  turning  Darwin  loose  in  an 
old  time  camp  meeting. 

*'  And  the  good  work  has  gone  steadily  and 
hopefully  on.  To-day  a  fair  portion  of  the 
public  not  only  reflects  on  the  manner  of 
telling  a  story  but  even  on  the  matter  of  it. 
Some  of  us  are  getting  almost  grown  up. 
Sometimes  the  story  actually  interests  us  less 
than  the  people  in  it,  than  the  idea  behind  it. 
What  do  these  people  think  and  feel,  why  do 
they  act  as  they  do?  First  we  insist  that  to 
win  our  sympathies  at  all  they  shall  speak  in 
our  idiom,  live  and  move  in  the  understand- 
able atmosphere  of  our  time,  be  real  to  us  as 
life  itself  is  real  to  us.  And  after  that,  after 
we  have  accepted  them  as  human  beings  whom 
we  can  comprehend,  whose  doubts  and  fears 
and  joys  and  sorrows  are  like  our  own,  or  what 
our  own  might  conceivably  be,  after,  in  short, 
we  have  been  put  in  a  state  where  the  commun- 
ication of  emotion  from  the  actors  to  us  is  pos- 
sible, we  watch  their  development  through  the 
drama,  we  watch  and  feel  with  them  as  we 
would  with  our  friends.  It  is  not  so  much 
now  what  they  are  doing  as  how  they  are  doing 
it  and  how  they  are  developing  under  the 
strain  for  better  or  worse  that  holds  our  at- 
tention and  makes  the  playwright's  fame  as 
an  author  worthy  of  serious  attention.  No 
false  heroics,  no  strut  and  platform  eloquence, 


200    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

no  world  of  the  theater  unhke  anything  in 
life  is  possible  to-day  if  the  dramatist  would 
win  the  worthiest  part  of  the  public.  He  can 
make  no  false  steps,  interject  no  soliloquies  to 
help  his  tale  along,  rely  on  no  vocal  splurges, 
no  trite  conventions.  He  must  be  unrelent- 
ingly true  to  the  life  and  ideas  of  his  times. 
The  hero  to-day  is  not  the  figure  in  a  tunic  or 
glittering  mail  who  can  raise  a  chest  tone  to 
the  galleries  and  shatter  a  chandelier.  He  is 
the  man  who,  like  one  of  us  in  voice  and  dress 
and  mode  of  life,  in  inherited  ideas  and  con- 
ventional environment,  yet  unlike  us  dares  lis- 
ten to  his  own  soul  and  follow  its  voice  through 
thick  and  thin.  The  hero  of  the  stage  to-day 
who  can  win  our  sympathies  and  thrill  our 
hearts  and  lift  us  up  to  the  heights  is  not  Vir- 
giniiis,  but  Dr.  Thomas  Stockmann." 

"  That 's  pure,  unadulterated  Shaw,"  said 
we. 

**  Is  it?  "  said  the  Pessimist.  "  Well,  I  dare 
to  be  in  the  right,  even  with  Shaw !  Have  you 
the  audacity  to  tell  me  that  you  can  go  to  *  Vir- 
ginius  '  after  seeing  *  The  Great  Divide  '  with- 
out a  positive  revulsion  of  feeling,  a  cringing 
of  your  perceptive  faculties  away  from  such 
a  travesty  of  life?  Have  you  the  audacity  to 
tell  me  that  after  suffering  with  that  man  and 
that  woman  in  Mr.  Moody's  play,  after  trying 
to  plunge  to  their  motives,  after  straining  to 


CURING  A   PESSIMIST  201 

readjust  your  outlook  on  life  to  meet  the  new 
problems  they  present,  you  can  raise  one  little 
tear  for  Virginiiis  and  his  fool  daughter,  you 
can  find  one  gHmmer  of  interest?  Have  you 
the  audacity  to  tell  me  that  after  listening  to 
the  vivid,  nervous,  condensed,  lifelike  speech 
of  Mr.  Moody's  characters  you  can  listen  with 
any  patience  to  the  bombastic,  iambic  prose 
of " 

"  Hold  on,"  we  cried,  stung  by  his  tone. 
**  We  tell  you  nothing  of  the  kind.  You  Ve 
not  given  us  a  chance  to  say  a  word  anyhow." 

"  Very  good,  don't,"  said  he.  "  Now  I  'm 
not  saying  that  the  drama  of  the  future  will 
be  thus  or  thus.  Maybe  our  best  to-day  will 
be  as  artificial  and  old  fashioned  in  thirty  years 
as  *  Caste '  is  now.  I  'm  only  saying  that  it 's 
what  it  is  to-day,  and  being  what  it  is  the  man 
who  writes  plays  and  the  man  who  acts  them 
has  got  to  accept  it  if  he  wishes  to  hold  our 
attention,  win  our  sympathies,  stir  our  emo- 
tions. The  man  who  revives  Sheridan 
Knowles,  the  man  who  tries  to  act  like  Mac- 
ready,  the  man  who  writes  a  modern  play  in 
the  style  of  other  days  is  doomed  to  failure. 
He  is  pouring  new  wine  into  old  bottles.  He 
is  wasting  precious  juice.  We  still  have  horse 
cars  in  New  York  and  we  still  have  plays 
equally  anachronous.  They  both  pay  too.  But 
their  days  are  numbered.     This  is  the  age  of 


202    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

electricity  and  Truth.  The  stage  has  got  to 
measure  up  to  reahty  if  it  wants  to  hold  the 
attention  of  thinking  men  and  women.  In  the 
drama,  as  in  religion,  the  dear  old  days  of 
'  primitive  credulity  '  are  numbered." 

"What  about  the  poetic  drama?"  we  in- 
quired timidly. 

"  What  about  it?  Who  said  anything  about 
it?"  he  cried,  reaching  for  the  check.  ''We 
were  talking  about  *  Virginius.'  " 


KISSES   AND   DAVID    BELASCO 

(Belasco,  December  3,  1907) 

ONCE  it  was  a  bed,  now  it  is  a  kiss,  that 
Mr.  Belasco  cannot  get  along  without 
in  his  dramas.  Having  discovered 
that  beds  are  also  used  to  sleep  upon,  the  Wiz- 
ard has  discarded  them  from  his  list  of  the- 
atrical properties,  and  adopted  kisses.  The 
Belasco  kiss  differs  from  every  other  variety. 
"When  all  is  said,  what  is  a  kiss?"  asked 
Cyrano,  and  he  replied  to  his  own  question 
that  it  was  ''  a  rose  red  dot  upon  the  letter  i  in 
loving,"  and  many  other  delectable  things  be- 
sides, which  so  moved  the  heart  of  the  fair 
Roxane  that  she  cried  out,  "  Come  and  gather 
it,  the  supreme  flower !  "  But  there  the  matter 
ended.  She  did  n't  say  anything  more  about 
that  particular  kiss  all  the  rest  of  the  play. 
The  i  was  dotted,  the  page  turned.  Roxane, 
however,  was  French.  Mr.  Belasco's  recent 
heroines  are  not.  Such  carpc  diem  philosophy 
is  impossible  for  them.  They  go  on  talking 
about  the  kiss  till  the  end  of  the  chapter.  It 
is  evidently  a  tremendous  event  in  their  young 
Jives.    The  Girl  of  the  Golden  West,  who  had 


204    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

tended  bar  in  a  California  mining  camp  for 
years  without  a  single  lapse  from  the  chaste 
standards  of  Dowie,  Jr.,  which  is  one  of  the 
miracles  of  modern  drama,  had  no  regrets 
that  her  lover  was  a  highwayman.  But  she 
could  n't  get  over  the  fact  that  he  "  had  her 
first  kiss."  She  dwelt  upon  this  awful  loss 
with  pathetic  insistence.  The  little  Rose  of 
the  Rancho,  who  had  been  *'  laughing  in  the 
leaves  "  for  quite  some  time  amid  amorously 
inclined  young  men  of  Spanish  extraction,  was 
equally  ignorant  of  the  dotted  i  till  her  false 
lover  kissed  her.  And  then  she  ran  to  the 
shrine  of  the  Virgin  and  wiped  the  vile  thing 
from  her  lips.  And  in  "  The  Warrens  of  Vir- 
ginia "  we  find  the  same  allegiance  to  the  Pro- 
hibition party  among  the  fair  daughters  of  the 
F.  F.  V.'s.  Agatha  Warren,  who  in  common 
with  the  rest  of  her  family  talks  about  "  South- 
ern chivalry  "  and  such  things  to  a  degree  that 
almost  approaches  realism,  is  quite  as  unkissed 
as  her  California  sisters.  And  after  her 
Northern  lover  has  taught  her  the  proper  way 
to  dot  an  i,  it  is  that  which  rankles  in  her  bosom 
when  she  learns  his  treachery.  The  mere  fact 
that  he  has  violated  the  hospitality  of  her  home, 
that  he  has  brought  ruin  on  the  Southern 
cause,  disgrace  upon  her  father,  that  he  has 
done,  though  in  the  stern  duty  of  war,  a 
despicable  thing  and  shattered  her  ideal  of  him, 


KISSES   AND   DAVID    BELASCO         205 

is  apparently  as  nothing  beside  the  fact  that 
he  has  kissed  her.  It  is  that  she  rages  about, 
walking  down  stage  toward  the  fireplace. 
For  her  the  i  seems  to  be  measured  by  the  size 
of  the  dot. 

Now  perish  the  thought  that  we  should  seem 
to  speak  lightly  of  so  important  a  matter  as 
a  lady's  kiss!  It  is  a  subject,  to  be  sure,  that 
we  would  not  wish  to  appear  too  wise  about; 
but  we  would  not  appear  unduly  ignorant 
either.  And  when  The  Girl  of  the  Golden 
West  sets  so  much  store  by  something  which 
neither  her  environment  nor  her  instincts 
would  have  taught  her  was  of  supreme  impor- 
tance we  are  a  bit  skeptical.  Again  we  are 
skeptical  when  Miss  Agatha  of  Virginia 
naively  tells  Lieutenant  Burton  that  down 
South  a  man  does  n't  kiss  a  girl,  nor  a  girl  a 
man,  till  it 's  very  awfully  important  and  mean- 
ingful. That  is  doubtless  supposed  to  be  an- 
other manifestation  of  "  Southern  Chivalry." 
Whether  it  is  chivalrous  or  not  is  largely  a 
matter  of  individual  temperament!  Whether 
it  is  true  or  not  is  another  question,  and  one 
that  cannot  be  decided  except  by  the  evidence 
of  those  who  manifestly  won't  come  into  court 
to  testify.  But  a  certain  gentle  and  kindly 
skepticism  will  surely  not  be  construed  as  an 
insult,  even  in  Virginia.  Rather  may  it  be 
taken  as  a  compliment!  If  Southerners  talked 


206    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

a  little  less  about  their  chivalry  they  might  win 
more  credence  for  it  as  something  different 
and  finer  than  the  ordinary  gentleman's  re- 
gard for  his  women  folk  the  world  over.  As 
it  is  the  matters  of  sex  probably  absorb  quite 
as  much  of  the  attention  of  Southern  men  and 
women  as  of  Northern,  and  the  Southern  girl 
is  probably  no  less  instinctively  on  her  guard 
against  the  sweet,  amorous  assaults  of  her 
chivalrous  young  cavaliers,  and  no  more  ten- 
acious in  resistance. 

The  whole  question  is  one  of  very  consider- 
able unimportance.  If  there  's  anybody  who 
does  n't  know  that  the  kiss  of  first  love,  the 
betrothal  embrace,  is  a  high  and  holy  thing, 
a  civilized  community  is  no  place  for  him. 
And  if  there  is  anybody  who  does  not  know 
that  there  are  also  other  kisses  sweet  and  harm- 
less; that  the  hymn  of  love's  omnipotence 
never  was  and  never  can  be  chanted  with 
meeting  lips  alone,  he  is  a  very  curious  sort  of 
person.  Mr.  Belasco  is  overworking  this 
kissing  business.  He  has  tried  to  give  to  some- 
thing superficial  and  episodic  the  air  of  depth 
and  finality.  He  has  turned  a  simple  mani- 
festation of  half  physical  passion  into  a  dra- 
matic convention  and  sought  with  it  to  achieve 
an  effect  of  emotional  reality.  The  attempt 
is  so  characteristic  of  his  methods  —  we  say 
his   methods   advisedly,    though    William    De 


KISSES   AND   DAVID   BELASCO         207 

Mille  wrote  *'  The  Warrens  of  Virginia  "  — 
that  it  serves  to  point  a  lesson  quite  as  well 
as  anything-  else  in  this  play  at  his  theater. 
For  Mr.  Belasco,  widely  heralded  though  he 
be  as  a  realist,  is  as  a  matter  of  fact  no  realist 
at  all.  The  achievement  of  true  poetry  perhaps 
requires  the  brightest  talent  and  the  most  de- 
voted effort.  But  next  to  that  the  achievement 
of  realism  is  the  most  difficult  task  for  the  ar- 
tist, one  that  requires  insight,  imagination, 
unflagging  purpose,  unflinching  adherence  to 
the  truth.  Realism  is  truth  to  the  facts  of  life, 
and  realism  on  the  stage  must  be  truth  to  the 
facts  of  life  mirrored  in  an  art  form  the  most 
trying  of  all  art  forms  to  bend  to  reality.  The 
playwright  who  would  be  a  romantic  or  who 
would  create  melodramas  is  allowed  consid- 
erable license  of  plot  and  incident;  he  can  use 
various  of  the  dramatic  conventions  with 
which  the  stage  bridges  the  gulf  between  fact 
and  fiction.  But  the  realist  cannot  do  this. 
No  less  than  characters  and  scene  must  inci- 
dent and  plot  be  utterly  natural.  There  must 
be  truth  to  life  in  every  department.  Now, 
does  anybody  suppose  it  is  easy  to  be  true  to 
life  in  one  department  alone,  to  say  nothing 
of  all?  Two  lovers  quarrel  in  a  room.  The 
room  looks  just  like  a  real  room.  But  what  are 
his  feelings?  What  are  hers?  A  searching 
interest  in  human  nature  is  required  to  furnish 


208    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

an  answer;  yet  the  realist  must  find  that 
answer,  else  he  is  no  realist.  The  writer  of 
melodrama  or  romance  may  indicate  some  con- 
ventional mode  of  feeling  —  Mr.  Belasco's 
heroine  talks  about  her  first  kiss  —  and  hasten 
on  with  his  story;  and  we  are  no  wiser  than 
before.  But  the  realist  cannot  do  this,  his 
passion  being  to  get  at  the  truth.  He  may  have 
to  peel  off  layer  after  layer  of  conventional 
utterance,  but  at  last  he  will  wring  from  his 
characters  a  true  confession.  And  we  have 
learned  something.  And  just  so  the  incidents 
of  his  play  will  be  contributory  to  character, 
not  "  action,"  to  the  development  of  a  picture 
of  human  life  that  interests  us  because  it  is 
human  life,  tingling  with  reality,  not  to  the 
development  of  a  story  that  interests  us  be- 
cause we  are  excited  to  learn  what  will  happen 
next.  And  yet  the  realist  cannot  ignore  his 
story  and  remain  a  successful  artist  on  the 
stage.  Therefore  he  must  win  a  technique  so 
clairvoyant  that  it  is  not  visible,  enabling  him 
to  tell  a  story  that  seems  not  to  be  told  but  to 
happen.  The  successful  realist  must,  in  short, 
be  neither  a  prosaic  man  nor  a  trivial  one,  but 
a  man  of  searching  mind  and  superb  crafts- 
manship. Far  from  resting  on  superficial  de- 
tail, his  chief  interest  will  lie  in  the  deepest 
places  of  the  heart.  It  is  because  his  interest 
rests  on  surface  detail  and  his  insight  is  limited 


KISSES  AND   DAVID   BELASCO         «09 

to  superficial  reality  that  David  Belasco  is  not 
a  realist. 

It  is  quite  true  that  Mr.  Belasco  has  never 
very  stoutly  maintained  the  contrary.  A  man 
of  the  theater  in  the  most  intimate  sense  of 
the  term,  all  his  life  a  stage  director,  producer, 
dramatist,  manager,  w^ith  a  wonderful  scenic 
imagination,  and  a  sense  for  the  more  obvious 
phase  of  dramatic  style  unparalleled  on  our 
stage,  so  that  nothing  he  shows  can  wholly 
fail  of  conviction,  he  has  for  many  years  been 
putting  on  plays  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  en- 
tertaining a  vast  public  and  winning  for  him- 
self a  unique  and  honorable  fame.  He  has 
never  preached  a  philosophy  of  life  nor  an- 
nounced that  he  had  one  to  preach.  Perhaps 
life  does  not  greatly  interest  him,  his  interest 
in  the  theater  is  so  tremendous  and  so  absorb- 
ing. He  is  not  the  stuff  that  preachers  are 
made  of,  and  all  realists  are  preachers  of  a  kind. 
What  Mr.  Belasco  has  done  has  been  to 
write  pieces  for  the  play-house,  not  criti- 
cisms of  life.  Well  aware  that  such  pieces  to 
be  successful  or  to  satisfy  his  own  standards 
must,  however,  superficially  resemble  life,  he 
has  bent  his  mind  to  devise  them  with  all  pos- 
sible air  of  probability  and  with  all  possible 
fidelity  of  pictorial  setting.  Especially  in  the 
latter  respect  he  has  succeeded  as  no  other  man 
of  our  time  has.     The  sitting-room  of  Wes' 

14. 


210    THE   AMERICAN  STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

Bigelow's  house  in  "  A  Grand  Army  Man," 
or  the  beautiful  outdoor  scene  with  its  trees 
and  sapHngs  and  broken  gun  carriage  and 
running  brook  in  "  The  Warrens  of  Virginia," 
or  the  interior  set  in  the  same  play,  which,  by 
the  simple  but  imaginative  device  of  a  window 
opening  from  the  great  room  into  the  hall, 
allows  the  audience  to  see  the  tall  clock,  the 
stairs  and  the  heads  of  people  passing  in  that 
second  room  and  begets  an  overpowering  sug- 
gestion of  the  spaciousness  and  solidity  of  the 
mansion  —  are  all  eloquent  proofs  of  his  scenic 
power,  a  power  that  is  not  without  its  touch 
of  poetry  too,  and  never  without  the  painter's 
taste.  And  in  a  less  marked  degree  he  has  so 
ordered  the  exits  and  entrances  of  all  his  play- 
ers, guided  their  manners  and  gestures,  worded 
their  speeches  and  put  in  sequence  their  acts 
as  to  create  again  the  sense  of  surface  reality. 
So  deftly  and  so  carefully  has  he  done  it,  in 
fact,  that  the  unthinking  have  been  deceived 
time  and  again  at  his  dramas  and  supposed 
that  the  pleasure  they  were  deriving  from  his 
well-told  stories  was  the  pleasure  derived  from 
the  true  picture  of  life,  from  thoroughgoing 
reality.  And  because  of  that  fact  it  becomes 
the  critic's  duty  to  point  out  that  his  plays  in 
the  main  are  not  reality.  It  would  be  silly  to 
disparage  the  romance  or  the  melodrama  — 
good,  healthful  art  forms  both,  and  always  to 


KISSES   AND   DAVID   BELASCO         211 

be  enjoyed.  It  would  be  equally  silly  to  ask 
or  expect  Mr.  Belasco  to  write  like  Sudermann 
or  Ibsen.  It  would  be  absurd  to  belittle  his 
fine  achievement  because  it  is  not  something 
different.  And  no  carping  critic  even  from  a 
college  English  department  would  wish  to  see 
his  plays  any  less  successful.  All  that  is  asked 
is  that  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  his  plays  are 
not  deeply  reality,  that  they  are  good  stories, 
not  emotionally  nor  intellectually  good  dramas 
—  in  short,  that  a  popgun  is  not  the  crack  of 
doom. 

That  a  hair,  however,  sometimes  "  divides 
the  false  and  true  "  in  drama  as  in  philosophy 
"  A  Grand  Army  Man  "  bears  witness.  In 
that  play,  aided  and  inspired  by  the  genius  of 
David  Warfield,  himself  a  creator  no  less  than 
his  playwright  and  a  man  of  reasoned  and 
sound  convictions  about  his  art,  Mr.  Belasco 
has,  by  a  mere  shift  of  the  emphasis,  gone 
down  through  his  surface  details  to  the  true 
realism  beneath,  instead  of  employing  the  de- 
tails to  hide  the  threadbare  conventions  of  his 
story.  In  that  play,  thanks  to  Warfield,  the 
emphasis  has  been  placed  on  character;  the 
story,  none  too  fresh  nor  skilfully  told,  has 
been  subordinated  and  simplified  till  the  char- 
acter interest  dwarfs  and  hides  it.  What  is 
conventional  in  the  play  gives  place  to  what 
is  real.     And  a  true  picture  of  American  life 


212    THE   AMERICAN    STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

has  been  painted,  a  true  and  lovely  criticism 
spoken,  if  it  is  not  indeed  rather  an  apprecia- 
tion than  a  criticism.  Hence  "  A  Grand  Army 
Man "  becomes  a  contribution  to  American 
drama,  while  "  The  Warrens  of  Virginia," 
like  so  many  other  of  the  Belasco  productions, 
is  only  an  ephemeral  entertainment. 

As  such  it  can  be  mildly  recommended  to 
theatergoers  who  are  not  too  insistent  on  fresh- 
ness of  plot  or  incident.  If  some  of  them  are 
a  little  bored  at  the  sentimental  love  scene  be- 
tween General  Warren  and  his  wife,  knowing 
full  well  that  it  is  just  there  to  heighten  the 
pathos  of  the  climax,  when  it  is  certain  long  be- 
fore the  act  is  over  that  the  General's  happiness 
will  be  dashed  to  earth  by  the  news  of  the 
Union  ambush,  we  can  only  bid  them  be  of 
good  cheer  —  this  is  a  melodrama  they  are 
looking  on,  and  besides  Frank  Keenan  as  the 
General  is  acting  very  well  indeed,  displaying 
a  power  to  suggest  tenderness  hitherto  unsus- 
pected. Work  such  as  Mr.  Keenan  does  in  this 
play  is  not  lightly  to  be  passed  over.  He  is 
still  a  little  angular  in  style,  a  little  acid,  a 
little  suggestive  of  the  man  whose  effects  are 
somehow  cramped  in  the  creation,  so  that  they 
do  not  come  from  him  quite  with  ease  and  spon- 
taneity. But  his  range  is  wider  in  this  part 
than  it  has  ever  been  before,  his  personal  pres- 
ence more  charming  and  his  emotional  expres- 


KISSES  AND   DAVID   BELASCO        213 

sions  far  greater.  It  was  always  his  gift  to 
visualize  a  character  and  subordinate  all  de- 
tails to  that  picture  and  its  underlying  signi- 
ficance. He  could  see  a  part  whole.  But  as 
General  Warren  he  sees  a  part  large  as  well, 
and  he  is  able  to  make  it  tell  not  only  pictorially 
but  emotionally,  to  make  it  live  as  a  person, 
not  a  picture.  This  testy,  proud,  tender, 
courtly,  narrow-minded,  big-hearted  Confed- 
erate commander  of  his  is  the  one  breathing 
figure  in  the  play,  the  one  character  that  exists 
after  the  final  curtain  has  fallen,  however  in- 
terested you  may  be  in  the  fate  of  the  others 
while  the  story  is  in  full  race. 

And  because  it  is  a  living  character,  and 
because  Mr.  Keenan  plays  it  so  well,  perhaps 
you  will  leave  the  theater  wishing  that  the  last 
act  had  been  the  first.  Sitting  under  the  roses 
before  his  Colonial  mansion  five  years  after  the 
war,  worn  out  with  ploughing  —  he,  a  Warren 
of  Virginia,  forced  now  to  work  in  his  own 
fields!  —  the  General's  story  has  just  begun. 
The  curtain  is  just  rung  up  on  the  tragedy  of 
the  old  South.  No  melodrama  can  depict  ade- 
quately the  great  struggle  of  '6i  to  '65;  no 
drama,  however  deep  and  serious,  can  pack 
that  tremendous  bloodshed  into  the  poor  traf- 
fic of  an  evening  on  the  stage.  But  the  realist 
could  take  the  Warrens  on  their  impoverished 
plantation  after  the  war  was  over  and  in  a 


214    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

story  as  simple  as  he  chose  get  at  the 
depths  of  their  fine,  proud  hearts  and  write 
a  play  worth  while.  After  all  the  General 
is  most  appealing  and  most  picturesque  just 
when  the  present  play  is  finishing.  After 
all  the  present  story  is  most  interesting  just 
when  it  is  most  superficial,  conventional,  and 
unsatisfactory  —  at  the  final  scene  when  the 
Northern  lover  is  forgiven  for  his  treach- 
ery. We  suspect  he  never  was  forgiven.  But 
if  he  was,  it  was  not  after  a  five-minute  inter- 
view —  no,  it  was  after  prayers  and  tears  and 
struggle  and  heartache.  These  struggles  and 
these  heartaches  are  Agatha's  real  drama.  We 
should  like  to  see  them  depicted,  though  not 
by  Miss  Charlotte  Walker.  We  should  like  to 
see  the  real  story  of  the  Warrens  of  Virginia 
set  forth  upon  the  stage.  After  the  fiction  we 
should  like  the  facts.  We  are  grateful  for  the 
former,  but  there  is  a  need  it  does  not  satisfy, 
a  deeper  hunger  the  Belasco  drama  does  not 
meet. 


THE   CASTLES   VS.  MR.   POLLOCK 

(Lyric,  December  20,  1907) 

SIR  AUSTIN  FEVEREL  remarked  that 
Woman  will  be  the  last  thing  civilized 
by  Man.  If  that  is  true  it  is  due  not  so 
much  to  the  quality  of  the  material  as  to  the 
clumsy  methods  of  the  workman.  Eternal  war- 
fare has  never  been  conducive  to  the  growth 
of  civilization.  What  is  needed  is  a  peace- 
maker thrice  blessed.  And  that  the  sexes  are 
in  eternal  combat  Mr.  Meredith  is  not  alone 
of  our  great  thinkers  in  affirming.  No  less 
profound  a  philosopher  and  mighty  an  artist 
than  Egerton  Castle  (also  Agnes  ditto)  has 
declared  much  the  same  thing  in  that  classic 
of  recent  fiction,  "  The  Secret  Orchard,"  which 
a  few  seasons  back  was  what  R.  R.  Whiting 
would  call  one  of  the  six  best  smellers.  Mr. 
Meredith,  indeed,  is  so  impressed  with  the 
greatness  of  the  combat  that  he  breaks  into 
verse  about  it  —  into  verse  that  can  almost  be 
read  in  the  original.  In  his  poem  called  "  A 
Preaching  From  a  Spanish  Ballad"  he 
remarks : 


216     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

Never  nature  cherished  woman: 
She  throughout  the  sexes'  war 

Serves  as  temptress  and  betrayer, 
Favoring  man,  the  muscular. 

And  when  the  Spanish  lady's  roving  husband 
comes  home  to  surprise  her  with  a  lover,  to 
whom  she  has  boasted  that  she  is  "  no  help- 
less woman,"  but  a  free  agent,  like  Magda, 
she  cowers  before  him. 

'Round  his  head  the  ancient  terrors, 

Conjured  of  the  stronger's  law, 
Circle,  to  abash  the  creature 

Daring  twist  beneath  his  paw. 

How  though  he  hath  squandered  Honour! 

High  of  honour  let  him  scold: 
Gilding  of  the  man's  possession  — 

'T  is  the  woman's  coin  of  gold. 

Well,  perhaps!  But  woman  will  never  be 
raised  to  the  rarefied  atmosphere  of  masculine 
civilization  by  keeping  it  so.  That  was  the  way 
they  did  things  back  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when 
mankind  had  reached  about  that  stage  of  de- 
velopment now  represented  by  popular  fiction 
and  drama.  In  the  book  which  the  Chevalier 
Geoffrey  de  La  Tour  Landry  made  for  the 
"  teching  of  his  doughters  "  in  1371  are  many 
"  fayr  examples  "  of  how  the  Erring  Sister 
was  regarded  by  professing  Christians  in  those 
days  of  chivalry  and  cathedrals.    Caxton  made 


THE   CASTLES  VS.    MR.    POLLOCK    217 

a  translation  of  the  book,  and  he  was  the  first 
to  put  it  into  print,  in  1484.  Here  is  a  typical 
passage  which  must  have  edified  the  little 
daughters  of  the  Knight  of  the  Tower  very 
much  and  taught  them  sweet  charity.  Out  of 
our  great  reverence  for  Professor  Brander  Mat- 
thews we  shall  reproduce  Caxton's  spelling. 
The  chapter  is  headed,  "  How  before  this  tyme 
men  punysshed  them  that  were  difTamed."  The 
good  knight  seems  a  little  wroth  that  Erring 
Sisters  are  no  longer  treated  so  badly  as  once 
they  were  in  France.  He  sighs  for  the  "  good 
old  days  "  prior  to  1371 ! 

**  And  yet,"  he  says,  "  I  ne  knowe  but  fewe 
Reames  this  day,  sauf  the  Reame  of  Fraunce 
and  of  Englond,  and  in  the  lowe  or  basse 
Almayne,  but  that  men  doo  justyse  of  them 
when  the  trouthe  and  certaynte  of  the  dede 
may  be  openly  knowen,  that  is  to  wete,  in 
Romayne,  in  Spayne,  in  Aragon,  and  in  many 
other  Reames.  In  somme  places  men  kytte 
of  theire  throtes,  and  in  somme  they  be  heded 
before  the  peple.  And  in  other  places  they  be 
mewred  or  put  bytwene  two  walles.  And 
therfor  this  Example  is  good  and  prouffytable 
to  every  good  woman." 

Alack,  there  was  one  form  of  torture  un- 
known to  this  kindly  old  fiower  of  French 
chivalry !  Horrible  as  it  is  to  be  "  mewred," 
or  put  between  two  walls,  it  is  worse  to  be  put 


218    THE    AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

between  two  covers,  two  castle  walls,  as  it 
were.  There  the  poor  wronged  damsel  is  not 
only  heaped  with  scorn  and  dismissed  with- 
out charity  but  she  is  absolutely  inundated  by 
a  sea  of  rhetoric,  drowned  in  a  welter  of  hifalu- 
tin  bombast.  Our  first  impression  after  read- 
ing the  book  was  one  of  utter  bewilderment 
that  such  a  work  could  ever  have  found  a  pub- 
lisher or  a  public.  We  spoke  of  this  to  the 
very  literary  critic,  and  he  said:  "Humph; 
you  had  oughter  read  *  Three  Weeks.'  "  Our 
next  impression  was  one  of  admiration  for 
Channing  Pollock,  who,  while  using  so  much 
of  the  language  of  the  book,  has  contrived  by 
boiling  each  speech  down  seventy  five  per  cent  to 
make  it  sound  like  human  utterance  and  who 
has  accomplished  the  more  Herculean  task, 
while  using  the  characters  and  episodes  of  the 
book,  of  endowing  them  with  some  qualities  of 
interest  and  some  show  of  reality.  We  shall 
never  forgive  Mr.  Pollock,  if  he  did  it  of  his 
own  volition,  for  selecting  such  a  book  to 
dramatize.  But  once  having  dramatized  it,  we 
take  off  our  hat  to  his  accomplishment. 

A  third  impression  there  was  after  reading 
the  novel  (besides,  of  course,  drowsiness)  — 
a  renewed  conviction  that  of  all  the  cants  of 
criticism  none  is  less  worthy  of  attention  and 
respect  than  the  shudder  of  horror  at  the 
"  happy  ending."    The  happy  ending  to  a  story 


THE   CASTLES  VS.   MR.    POLLOCK    219 

that  begins  unpleasantly  is  generally  supposed 
to  be  "inartistic"  and  "illogical."  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  in  at  least  fifty  cases  out  of  a  hundred 
it  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  "  The  wages  of  sin 
is  death?  "  Not  at  all.  Nothing  is  more  cer- 
tain than  that  sin  often  commands  very  good 
wages.  And  the  scarlet  woman  is  n't  the  only 
sinner  on  whom  a  lot  of  pity  is  wasted.  It  is 
the  glaring  plainness  of  this  fact  which  makes 
the  task  of  the  moralist  so  hard.  But,  far  more 
than  this,  what  makes  the  average  tragic  end- 
ing in  reality  illogical  and  inartistic  (because 
untrue)  is  the  vast  difference  in  time  between 
popular  literature  and  life;  the  morals  and 
motives  of  such  fiction  are  the  morals  and  mo- 
tives of  the  Middle  Ages,  or  of  the  Cave  men. 
The  life  of  most  of  us  is  lived  in  the  pres- 
ent generation.  It  is  entirely  to  Mr.  Pol- 
lock's credit  that  he  discovered  this  fact.  For 
"  The  Secret  Orchard "  is  an  excellent  case 
in  point.  Its  morals  and  motives  are  of  the 
Middle  Ages  —  if  they  ever  existed  in  time 
or  space !  —  even  of  the  Caves.  When  Lieu- 
tenant George  Dodd  of  the  U.  S.  N.,  who 
represented  manly  strength  and  Anglo-Saxon 
resolution  and  a  smooth  face  and  everything 
dear  to  the  sweet  girl  readers  of  the  Castle 
brand  of  fiction,  fell  madly  and  devotedly 
in  love  with  little  Joy,  it  was  a  pleasant  thing 
and   in   every   way   creditable   to   the   young 


220    THE  AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

gentleman.  But  when,  on  discovering  that  his 
sweetheart,  whom  he  loved  with  all  the  devo- 
tion of  his  great,  broad,  manly  Anglo-Saxon 
nature  (42  chest,  6  inch  expansion,  please) 
had  in  her  innocence  and  trustfulness  once 
fallen  a  victim  to  the  arch  enemy,  Man,  what 
did  he  do?  Did  he  pity  her?  Did  he  make 
any  effort  to  provide  for  her,  to  safeguard  her 
future?  Did  it  enter  his  head  to  forgive  her, 
to  go  on  loving  her?  Oh,  no!  He  at  once 
reverted  to  type,  he  became  a  Cave  man. 
Somebody  else  had  taken  a  nibble  of  the  fruit 
he  wanted  all  to  himself,  so  it  no  longer  had 
any  value  for  him.  His  great,  strong  Anglo- 
Saxon  nature  rose  manfully  to  the  occasion 
and  he  cried  out  to  Cluny,  the  seducer,  within 
hearing  of  the  girl,  too,  "  Bastard  Stuart  as  you 
are  —  would  you  palm  off  your  discarded  mis- 
tress upon  me !  "  The  book  tells  us  that  these 
noble  sentiments  were  "  spat "  at  Cluny,  and 
they  were  followed  by  a  blow.  The  next  morn- 
ing this  manly  representative  of  Saxon  chiv- 
alry killed  Cluny  in  a  duel,  and  went  off  to 
America  without  any  further  attention  to  poor 
little  Joy,  who  just  about  then  had  some  slight 
need  of  a  friend  or  two. 

And  that  is  the  ending  which  Mr.  Castle 
deems  "  artistic  "  and  "  logical,"  and  which  he 
demands  be  restored  to  the  play  before  the 
stage  version  is  shown  elsewhere.     As  far  as 


THE   CASTLES   VS.   MR.    POLLOCK     221 

the  book  is  concerned,  the  only  logical  and 
artistic  ending  is  the  waste-basket.  As  far 
as  the  play  is  concerned,  Mr.  Pollock's  artistic 
sense  is  quite  correct,  because  he  doubtless 
realizes  that  not  the  loss  of  chastity  but  the 
loss  of  the  desire  to  be  chaste  is  what  matters ; 
that  already  white  flags  are  being  borne  between 
the  opposing  lines  in  the  battle  of  the  sexes; 
that  truly  civilized  men  hold  it  logical  rather 
that  all  honor  be  "  coin  of  gold  "  than  that  a 
bimetallic  standard  prevail;  that  love  which  is 
worthy  of  the  name  forgiveth  all  things; 
finally,  that  even  in  Christendom  there  are  be- 
ginning to  be  Christians.  In  the  book  Joy 
continued  to  love  her  seducer.  That  would 
be  an  excuse  for  the  Lieutenant's  failure  to 
marry  her.  But  nothing  can  excuse  his  base 
desertion  of  her.  And  nothing  but  the  most 
primitive  and  conventional  and  fiction-fed  mind 
can  find  any  pleasure  in  his  melodramatic  duel 
with  Cluny.  It  is  the  act  of  a  Cave  man,  mad 
with  the  selfish  lust  of  revenge.  It  is  barbaric 
and  silly.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  stand- 
ards of  to-day.  The  critics  who  object  to  Mr. 
Pollock's  ending,  where  Joy,  who  has  come  to 
loathe  her  seducer,  is  forgiven  by  her  lover 
without  debate,  and  where  Cluny,  instead  of 
being  shot  down,  is  permitted  by  the  Lieuten- 
ant very  sensibly  to  work  out  his  salvation 
through  remorse,  are  Cave  men  critics.    They 


222     THE  AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

are  pleading  for  a  barbaric  standard  which 
has  too  long  prevailed  in  the  play-house,  the 
standard  which  helped  Maeterlinck  to  feel,  after 
an  evening  at  the  theater,  that  he  had  been 
spending  three  hours  with  his  ancestors. 

Guy  de  Maupassant  knew  better  than  this, 
and  nobody  has  ever  accused  him  either  of  lack 
of  artistry  or  undue  optimism.  Do  you  recall 
the  brave  little  Jewess  in  "Mile.  Fifi,"  who  was 
only  "  une  putain"?  She  went  back  to  her 
life  of  shame  after  her  escape  from  the  Prus- 
sians' dinner  party.  But,  we  learn  at  the  close, 
''  elle  en  fut  tiree  quelque  temps  apres  par  un 
patriote  sans  prejuges  qui  I'aima  pour  sa  belle 
action,  puis  I'ayant  ensuite  cherie  pour  elle- 
meme,  I'epousa,  en  fit  une  dame  qui  valut  au- 
tant  que  beaucoup  d'autres." 

Ah,  well,  Lieutenant  Dodd  was  n't  "  un  pa- 
triote " ;  he  was  only  an  American.  Some- 
times there  is  a  difference.  Nevertheless  it 
is  impossible  to  escape  the  conviction  that  Mr. 
Pollock's  ending  gives  to  the  play  of  "  The 
Secret  Orchard "  whatever  significance  that 
drama  has,  for  it  is  his  personal  reaction  on 
the  situation,  his  contribution  of  a  "  criticism 
of  life  "  to  a  work  that  otherwise  is  conven- 
tional and  unreal.  In  his  earlier  play,  "  The 
Little  Gray  Lady,"  Mr.  Pollock  tried  to  put 
on  the  stage  a  bit  of  life  observed  at  first  hand, 
a  story  of  middle  class  life  in  Washington, 


THE   CASTLES   VS.   MR.   POLLOCK    223 

among  Government  employees.  He  lacked  then 
the  technical  skill  he  has  shown  in  "  The  Secret 
Orchard."  But  that  earlier  play  was  the  more 
worth  while  just  because  it  was  observed  at 
first  hand,  just  because  it  was  a  piece  of  the 
author's  experience.  It  is  profoundly  to  be 
hoped  that  in  his  next  play  he  will  return  to 
the  fount  of  original  inspiration,  to  himself  — 
and  not  to  any  such  trashy,  stale,  and  feeble 
book  by  another  as  "  The  Secret  Orchard." 
Mr.  Pollock  is  young;  he  is  one  of  the  growing 
number  of  American  young  men  who  are  be- 
ginning to  get  a  hearing  on  our  stage  —  Percy 
Mackaye,  William  De  Mille,  George  Middle- 
ton,  Owen  Johnson,  Austin  Strong,  and  others. 
The  next  decade  will  find  our  native  drama  in 
their  hands.  And  it  cannot  be  too  urgently 
pleaded  that  they  stick  to  reality,  to  life  as 
they  see  it;  that  they  follow  each  his  gleam 
and  knuckle  under  as  little  as  possible  to  the 
supposed  standards  of  the  box  office,  the  ideas 
of  ignorant  managers;  that  they  consent  with 
protest  to  the  easy  dramatization  of  ephemeral 
fiction.  It  is  n't  in  such  fiction  that  a  worthy 
drama  is  to  be  found;  it  is  in  the  life  they 
share  and  observe;  still  more  it  is  in  their 
inmost  selves. 

But  all  this  while  we  have  said  nothing  about 
Joy's  eyes.  They  must  have  been  very  remark- 
able eyes,  like  those  Mr.  Hichens  once  wrote 


224    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

about.  The  hero  of  "  An  Imaginative  Man  " 
married  a  woman  to  find  out  the  deep  secret 
of  her  mysterious,  unfathomable  eyes.  He 
found  it.  It  was  that  there  was  n't  any  secret. 
They  were  just  eyes.  So  he  was  greatly  bored, 
and,  being  a  Hichens  hero,  he  went  to  North 
Africa,  where  he  fell  in  love  with  the  Sphinx 
and  dashed  out  his  brains  against  the  left  paw 
of  that  somewhat  unresponsive  sweetheart. 
So  Cluny  soothed  his  conscience  during  his 
conquest  of  Joy  by  finding  the  devil  in  her  eyes. 
The  Lieutenant,  on  the  other  hand,  read  there 
only  sweetness  and  innocence.  Miss  Josephine 
Victor,  who  played  the  part,  compromised  on 
black  rings. 

Moral  :  When  you  see  what  you  want,  don't 
make  excuses. 


THE  ROUGH  DIAMOND  AS   HERO 

(Daly's,  January  i  8,  1908) 

LET  us  sing  of  the  playwright  and  his 
balloons.  Styles  change  in  balloons  as 
in  everything  else,  but  the  scientific 
construction  of  the  balloon  remains  the  same  — 
a  light,  tight  covering  inflated  with  gas  or  hot 
air.  A  decade  ago  the  prevailing  style  was  a 
pretty  pink,  the  color  of  an  Anthony  Hope 
romance.  **  Made  in  Zenda  "  had  to  be  the 
hall-mark  on  the  bag.  Now  there  has  been 
a  radical  change,  and  a  yellowish,  whitish, 
brownish  tinge  is  demanded,  a  mixture  of 
gold,  alkali  dust,  and  Nevada  or  Arizona  mud. 
"  Made  in  a  Western  mining  camp  "  is  the  re- 
quired hall-mark.  But  exactly  the  same  prin- 
ciple makes  the  balloons  go  up  —  gas.  As  an 
aeronaut  Mr.  Paul  Armstrong  has  made  two 
successful  flights.  Now,  at  Daly's  Theater,  he 
has  attempted  a  third,  with  a  cheering  multi- 
tude on  hand  to  ease  away  on  the  ropes  and 
watch,  with  craning  necks,  the  hardy  adven- 
turer soar  to  a  dot  against  the  blue  empyrean. 
Only,  for  some  reason  or  other,  the  balloon 
refused  to  soar.    Ballast  bag  after  ballast  bag 

15 


226     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

of  jokes  and  **  funny  lines  "  were  thrown  out 
of  the  car.  Still  the  balloon  did  not  tug  at  its 
anchor  ropes,  still  it  did  not  ascend.  And  at 
last  the  suspicion  grew  to  a  certainty  that  some- 
thing was  the  matter  with  the  gas ;  its  specific 
gravity  had  gone  wrong;  it  had  become  as 
dense  as  the  surrounding  atmosphere,  the  nor- 
mal atmosphere  in  which  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being  with  our  two  feet  on  the 
earth. 

A  chemical  investigation  was  at  once  or- 
dered, and  the  presence  discovered  in  the  tanks 
of  a  strange,  foreign  element  suspiciously  like 
oxygen.  How  it  got  there  none  of  the  ex- 
perts could  say,  unless  its  presence  was  to  be 
explained  by  a  kind  of  chemical  telepathy,  for 
this  oxygen  is  none  other  than  the  common 
sense  of  the  public.  The  whole  matter  is  one 
to  engage  Mr.  Thomas's  attention.  At  any 
rate  its  presence  in  the  tanks  was  quite  suffi- 
cient to  spoil  the  flight  of  the  balloon,  and  the 
good  gas  bag  "  Society  and  the  Bull-dog,"  in- 
stead of  voyaging  among  the  clouds  and  hob- 
nobbing with  Orion,  remained  fast  at  its  an- 
chorage, wabbling  groggily.  And,  with  the 
best  wishes  in  the  world  for  the  success  of 
Mr.  Paul  Armstrong  and  the  native  drama,  the 
judicious  observer  cannot  feel  sorry.  For  when 
the  native  drama  would  base  its  claims  to  at- 
tention on  any  such  false  and  jingo  pictures 


THE   ROUGH   DIAMOND   AS  HERO    227 

of  American  characters  and  conditions  as  those 
of  this  play  in  particular,  and  in  the  main  of 
the  whole  school  of  alkali  dust  dramas,  failure 
is  the  only  fate  deserved.  Gas  it  is  that  in- 
flates them,  gas  that  makes  them  go  up;  and 
when  the  gas  is  exhausted  they  shall  come  down 
and  hang  inverted  in  a  treetop,  like  the  nest 
of  last  year's  oriole. 

One  of  them  there  is,  to  be  sure,  which  marks 
an  honorable  exception,  "  The  Great  Divide." 
And  it  is  not  the  intellectual  subtlety  nor  the 
nervous  beauty  of  the  language  nor  the  high 
poetic  quality  of  the  images  scattered  through 
it  that  makes  this  drama  an  astonishing  ex- 
ception so  much  as  it  is  the  simple  common 
sense  of  its  characterizations.  Intellectual 
subtlety  and  nervous  prose  and  poetic  imagery 
are  not  to  be  expected  save  from  an  unusual 
playwright,  a  man  of  wide  culture  and  fine 
training  and  deep  imagination.  It  is  not  aston- 
ishing when  these  qualities  are  absent,  even 
from  successful  plays.  But  simple  truth  to 
fact,  ordinary  common  sense  in  characteriza- 
tion and  incident,  ought  to  be  the  possession 
of  every  dramatic  author,  high  or  low,  or  else 
his  right  to  scribble  plays  at  all  may  be  called 
very  seriously  in  question.  **  The  Great  Di- 
vide "  was  a  drama  that  contrasted  the  "  rough 
diamond"  West  with  the  much  abused  East; 
but  Mr.  Moody,  being  neither  a  rank  senti- 


228     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

mentalist  nor  a  blind  man,  realized  that  rough 
diamonds,  even  when  they  are  miners,  are  the 
better  for  cutting  and  polishing;  and  that  the 
inherited  dignity  from  generations  of  men  and 
women  of  gentle  breeding,  the  refinements  of 
a  civilized  community,  the  moral  conscience  of 
a  developed  people,  are  not  lightly  to  be  put 
aside,  are  not  easily  to  be  worsted,  indeed  are 
not  to  be  worsted  at  all,  but  only  infused  with 
blood  a  little  fresher  and  more  primitive.  Mr. 
Moody's  type  of  the  West  was  a  drunken  miner 
bent  on  rape;  of  the  East,  a  fine  woman  with 
instincts  strong  yet  refined,  with  a  mind  alert 
and  open,  yet  guided  by,  if  you  like,  a  New 
England  conscience.  That  this  man  was  a 
type  of  the  whole  West,  or  this  woman  a  type 
of  the  whole  East,  it  would  be  folly  to  assert. 
But  at  least  no  facts  were  juggled  with,  com- 
mon sense  was  not  put  to  the  blush,  the  ab- 
surd spectacle  was  not  presented  of  culture 
made  a  mockery  and  crudeness  glorified  into 
one  of  the  cardinal  virtues. 

Common  sense,  however,  seems  to  be  the 
last  quality  prized  by  the  playwright;  hence 
the  alkali  dust  school  of  drama,  a  thing  of 
warped  perspective,  false  characterization,  ex- 
aggerated sentimentality  and  copious  crudities. 
Perhaps  Bret  Harte  was  to  blame  in  the  be- 
ginning, laying,  as  he  did,  over  the  realism 
of  his  tales  the  shimmer  of  his  fun  and  the 


THE   ROUGH   DIAMOND   AS   HERO    229 

golden  glamor  of  his  romance.  That  fun  and 
that  romance  were  surely  their  own  justifica- 
tion, and  "  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp  "  will 
remain  imperishable.  But  in  other  hands  and 
in  the  coarser  medium  of  drama  the  fun  is 
cheapened,  the  romance  dies  away,  and  now 
even  the  realism  has  vanished,  giving  place  to 
an  absurd  conventionality.  What  truth  or 
value  is  there  in  all  this  pack  of  ''  Western  " 
plays  with  which  we  in  the  East  have  been 
deluged,  all  of  them  informing  us  how  noble 
is  the  rough-shod  miner,  how  feeble  and  rotten 
are  we  ?  Has  anybody  dramatized  the  Western 
Federation  of  Miners?  Have  we  seen  Moyer, 
or  Haywood,  or  Pettibone  as  the  hero  of  a 
play,  or  Harry  Orchard?  Has  it  ever  been 
intimated  in  one  of  these  dramas  that  men  and 
women  of  gentle  breeding  and  refined  tastes 
and  fine  ideals  do  now  and  then  dine,  yes,  and 
even  dance,  in  New  York  restaurants  such  as 
Sherry's,  and  that  beside  them  one  of  these 
*'  rough  diamonds,"  however  noble  his  heart, 
would  cut  rather  a  sorry  figure,  would  repre- 
sent, after  all,  a  lower  round  in  the  ladder  of 
civilization  ?  The  real  problem  is  n't  to  get 
down  to  him,  but  to  get  him  up. 

Once  upon  a  time  one  of  these  "  rough 
diamonds  "  from  Arizona,  a  man  who  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  was  eminently  respect- 
able  in  morals   and  had  never   put   a  bomb 


230    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

under  anybody's  front  gate,  came  to  New 
York,  lunched  at  Sherry's,  and  was  conducted 
through  the  prominent  streets  of  the  city. 
Finally  he  said:  "Me  for  the  desert  again! 
I  can't  stand  this.  I  want  room  to  think  in ! " 
One  imagines  Paul  Armstrong's  bosom  heav- 
ing with  joy  at  this  remark,  his  soul  expand- 
ing with  an  answering  ardor.  But  a  chilly 
little  stubborn  fact  will  not  out  of  the  way. 
No  doubt  this  miner  went  back  to  Arizona; 
no  doubt  he  thought  and  thought  and  thought 
till  his  brains  were  numb,  like  the  babes  in 
Toyland.  But  Peterkin's  question  remains  to 
be  answered,  "  What  good  came  of  it  at  last?  " 
Alack !  his  thoughts  were  wasted  on  the  desert 
air!  He  may  have  been  a  mute,  inglorious 
Kant,  for  all  we  can  say.  But  there  were  no 
citizens  of  Konigsberg  to  set  their  watches  at 
4.30  when  he  went  by,  little  and  sober  and 
mild.  No  old  Lampe  on  threatening  days 
"  was  seen  anxiously  following  him  with  a 
large  umbrella  under  his  arm,  like  an  image 
of  Providence."  No  manuscript  that  should 
shake  the  world  with  its  ideas  was  cumulating, 
mountains  high,  in  his  study.  At  most  he 
increased  a  little  with  his  pick  the  world's  store 
of  yellow  gold  for  us  to  scramble  and  fight 
for  in  the  stifling  market-place.  And  while 
he  was  thinking  his  great  thoughts  out  there 
in  the  desert  to  mingle  with  the  alkali  dust  in 


THE   ROUGH   DIAMOND   AS   HERO     231 

symbolic  union,  right  here  in  the  Eastern 
metropolis  Professor  Dewey  was  lecturing  at 
Columbia  on  the  Relativity  of  Truth  to  scores 
of  young  men,  and  noted  physicians  were  work- 
ing at  the  problem  of  preventive  medicine,  and 
a  myriad  books  were  being  written  out  of 
which  some  tiny  percentage  of  the  far  more 
precious  ore  of  human  knowledge  will  be  ex- 
tracted for  future  generations  to  profit  by. 
Indeed,  this  task  of  contrasting  the  rough-shod 
West  with  the  degenerate  East,  the  mining 
camp  with  the  metropolis,  is  not  so  simple  and 
easy  as  the  alkali  dramatists  seem  to  suppose. 
And  let  us,  however  charmed  we  may  be,  and 
quite  legitimately  charmed,  with  the  pictur- 
esqueness  and  humor  of  mining  camp  or 
ranch,  in  the  name  of  common  sense  have  done 
with  supposing  that  the  task  is  accomplished 
when  a  deluge  of  sentimentality  has  been  poured 
through  the  drama  and  the  rough  diamond 
takes  his  daughter  back  to  the  gulch,  satisfied 
that  his  way  is  the  best  way  and  conscious 
that  the  author  would  have  us  think  so,  too. 

In  the  face  of  this  fundamental  falsity,  cer- 
tain other  faults  in  "  Society  and  the  Bull- 
dog "  assume  a  relative  unimportance.  Yet 
they  are  not  unimportant  to  Mr.  Armstrong 
if  he  is  to  continue  to  write  plays  with  a  hope 
of  any  significant  success.  And  the  most  cry- 
ing of  these  faults,  perhaps,  is  not  so  much  his 


232    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

careless  and  clumsy  observation  —  or  at  least 
his  rendering  —  of  the  usages  of  polite  society, 
even  of  the  near-society  represented  in  this 
play,  as  his  fatal  trick  of  mixing  up  farce  and 
burlesque  and  drama  in  a  jumble  absolutely 
fatal  to  illusion.  A  certain  unity  of  style  is 
demanded,  even  in  an  alkali  drama.  If  we  are 
to  accept  as  serious  the  noble  sentiments  and 
sturdy  fiber  of  the  rough  diamond  hero,  there 
must  be  some  seriousness  in  the  portrait  of  the 
society  which,  by  contrast,  brings  his  splendid 
character  into  the  light.  If  the  one  is  n't  true, 
the  other  will  not  seem  so.  The  entrance  of 
the  tenderfoot  in  the  first  act  of  the  new  play, 
coming  into  a  Nevada  mining  camp  clad  in 
comic  opera  green  riding  clothes  that  he  never 
under  any  circumstances  would  have  worn,  and 
carrying  a  golf  bag,  though  it  was  already  half 
past  six  in  the  evening  and  he  must  have 
known  there  was  n't  a  course  within  three 
hundred  miles,  was  like  a  slap  in  the  face  to  the 
audience.  The  spectator  who  had  supposed 
that  he  was  looking  at  least  on  an  attempted 
reproduction  of  life  sank  back  prepared  for 
almost  any  absurdity,  even  the  strains  of  the 
"  Rosary  "  wailed  on  a  parlor  organ  under  the 
stage  while  the  heroine  tells  the  hero  that  she 
loves  him.  Yet  even  this  preparation  was  in- 
sufficient quite  to  allay  amazement  at  the  hap- 
penings that  follow  in  Sherry's,  the  Lew  Fields 


THE   ROUGH   DIAMOND   AS   HERO     233 

waiters,  the  fantastic  "  society "  people,  the 
opera  bouffe  extravagances.  The  last  glim- 
merings of  illusion  gave  way  to  laughter  long 
before  the  act  was  over.  Even  farce  can  have 
some  outward  semblance  of  reality.  But  this 
wild  burlesque  had  none.  Disregard  of  all  ar- 
tistic unity,  scorn  or  indifference  to  the  com- 
mon sense  and  taste  and  judgment  of  the 
public,  could  go  no  further.  *'  Society  and  the 
Bull-dog  "  deserved  no  better  fate  than  failure. 


ON    TAKING    COHAN   SERIOUSLY 

(Garrick,  February  3,  1908) 

WHEN  George  M.  Cohan,  author,  poet, 
actor,  composer,  stage  manager,  con- 
ductor, in  short  one  of  the  most  ver- 
satile artists  and  mighty  minds  that  incubates 
near  the  southwest  corner  of  Broadway  and 
Forty-second  Street,  is  in  New  York,  forty- 
five  minutes  will  take  him  quite  far  enough 
from  the  bright  lights.  But  when  he  is  in 
Boston  forty-five  miles  is  not  far  enough  away. 
So  he  journeyed  out  to  Brookfield,  Massachu- 
setts, which  is  about  fifty  miles  from  the  Hub  by 
railroad  and  a  hundred  by  the  Boston  and  Al- 
bany, and  wrote  a  play  about  that  hitherto  in- 
offensive village.  He  called  his  play  "  Fifty 
Miles  from  Boston,"  and  he  showed  it  at  the 
Garrick  Theater,  with  Edna  Wallace  Hopper 
as  the  village  postmistress  and  Laurence  Wheat 
as  the  hero. 

This  hero  was  none  other  than  Joe  Westcott, 
just  home  from  dear  old  Harvard,  where  he 
had  won  the  baseball  game  by  his  magnificent 
pitching.  Of  course,  Brookfield  turned  out  to 
the  last  broiler  to  welcome  him.     That 's  the 


ON   TAKING   COHAN   SERIOUSLY      235 

way  they  always  do  when  you  get  home  from 
college.  The  really  improbable  thing  about  it 
is  that  Harvard  won  the  game!  Now,  Joe 
loved  Sadie  Woodis,  the  village  postmistress. 
The  Government  paid  Sadie  so  well  for  read- 
ing postal  cards  that  she  sported  silk  stockings 
and  a  picture  hat  of  magnificent  proportions. 
Sadie  loved  Joe,  too.  But  Sadie's  bad,  naughty 
little  brother  had  swiped  four  hundred  dollars 
out  of  the  post  office  till  to  bet  on  Yale  with 
(it  looked  like  a  safe  risk!),  and  only  Dave 
JJarrigan,  the  Brookfield  Dude,  knew  about  it. 
Dave  was  awful  sweet  on  Sadie,  also,  but  he 
did  n't  have  a  look  in.  She  told  him  so  while 
she  pumped  real  water  from  a  real  pump, 
which  proved  this  a  rural  drama.  So  Dave 
told  Jed  Woodis,  the  brother,  that  he  'd  peach 
on  him  if  he  did  n't  make  Sadie  throw  Joe  over 
in  his  favor.  Jed  sure  was  up  against  it  bad, 
and  he  did  as  he  was  bid,  which  gave  Edna 
Wallace  Hopper  a  chance  to  be  emotional  and 
helped  out  the  comedy. 

Just  before  the  end  of  the  second  act  it 
looked  as  if  Sadie  would  have  to  give  up  Joe 
or  see  little  brother  spend  twenty  days  in  the 
shade.  In  fact  you  were  quite  sure  that  she 
was  going  to  give  up  Joe,  right  then  and  there, 
for  the  post  office  inspector  was  due  the  next 
morning.  But  soft!  What  noise  is  this  that 
breaks  upon  the  still  evening  air?    Can  it  be? 


236    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

No  ?  Yes  ?  It  is  —  it  is  the  village  fire  bell ! 
Can  it  be  again?  Is  the  hand  of  fate  so  kind? 
Do  such  things  really  happen?  They  do!  The 
post  office  is  on  fire!  A  great  sigh  of  relief 
swept  over  the  audience  (or  was  it  latighter?). 
Let  the  inspector  come!  Ashes  tell  no  tales! 
Jed  was  saved.  Sadie  was  saved.  Joe  should 
make  his  home  run  after  all.  And  Edna  Wal- 
lace Hopper  need  be  emotional  no  longer! 

After  this  act,  w'hich  was  the  last  but  one, 
Mr.  Cohan  made  a  speech.  He  said  he  hoped 
nobody  would  take  him  seriously.  Now,  the 
author  who  comes  before  a  curtain  and  asks 
the  audience  not  to  take  his  work  seriously  is 
pretty  sure  to  have  his  request  granted.  If 
an  author  does  n't  regard  his  own  efforts  as 
worthy  of  serious  consideration,  nobody  else 
■  under  heaven  is  going  to  reverse  his  judgment. 
Of  course,  no  work  that  is  n't  taken  seriously, 
even  the  most  fantastic  farce  —  taken,  that  is, 
as  an  effort  toward  achieving  some  sort  of 
definite  artistic  effect  —  will  in  the  long  run 
command  any  attention,  bring  any  credit  to 
author  or  producer.  So  when  Mr.  Cohan 
comes  forth  and  attempts  to  apologize  for  the 
crudeness  and  triteness  and  absurd  childishness 
of  his  play  by  asking  the  audience  not  to  take 
him  seriously,  he  is  in  reality  publicly  con- 
fessing his  failure  and  his  unfitness  to  claim 
consideration  as  a  dramatic  author. 


ON   TAKING   COHAN   SERIOUSLY      237 

As  a  musician,  of  course,  Mr.  Cohan  has 
always  been  a  joke.  His  idea  of  composition 
is  to  take  a  good  tune  and  spoil  it.  He  tosses 
"  Yankee  Doodle,"  "  Dixie,"  a  Sousa  march, 
a  few  yards  of  ragtime,  a  stock  waltz  or  two 
into  a  pot,  sets  it  on  the  stove  and  waits  till 
it  comes  to  a  boil.  Then  he  skims  off  the  waste 
matter  which  rises  —  and,  lo !  that  scum  is  a 
Cohan  overture,  or  march,  or  waltz,  or  "  pa- 
triotic song,"  or  anything  you  choose,  accord- 
ing to  the  tempo  employed  by  the  conductor. 
But  as  a  playwright  Mr.  Cohan  used  to  show 
gleams  of  something  better  than  this.  There 
were  moments  of  hilarious  farce  in  "  Running 
for  Office."  In  certain  other  of  his  pieces  the 
slang  and  easy,  "  nervy  "  poise  of  the  young 
race-track  hanger-on  were  caught  with  some- 
thing like  fidelity  and  with  a  good  bit  of  flip 
humor.  "  Running  for  Office  "  had  claims  to 
serious  consideration  as  a  farce  with  songs,  a 
rough  kind  of  comedy  vaudeville,  to  employ  the 
French  term.  There  were  times  when  "  Forty- 
five  Minutes  from  Broadway  "  had  claims  to 
serious  consideration  as  a  genre  picture,  a  half 
unconscious  rendering  of  character  types  that 
George  Ade  would  depict  consciously  and  with 
a  touch  of  satire. 

And  as  long  as  Mr.  Cohan  stuck  to  this 
genre,  to  the  depiction  of  these  types,  in  the 
limited  field  of  broad  humor   (or   Broadway 


238     THE   AMERICAN  STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

humor!),  no  sensible  person  could  complain. 
If  you  didn't  like  these  types,  these  flip  young 
men  loaded  with  the  latest  slang,  it  was  your 
privilege  to  stay  away,  knowing  that  by  no 
chance  would  it  occur  to  Mr.  Cohan  to  make 
fun  of  them  as  well  as  with  them,  that  for 
him  they  represented  the  hero  in  his  finest 
form.  Many  did  like  them,  went  to  see  and 
applaud  them,  and  there  was  no  harm  done 
except  for  the  subtle  debasement  of  taste  that 
must  inevitably  result  from  careless  listening 
to  such  atrocious  music  as  Mr.  Cohan's. 

But,  emboldened  and  perhaps  a  little  over- 
elated  by  his  success,  Mr.  Cohan  was  not  con- 
tent to  go  on  doing  the  things  he  knew  how 
to  do  and  had  some  right  to  do.  He  must 
needs  rush  in  where  better  men  than  he  have 
trod  with  timid  feet;  he  must  needs  try  to 
depict  emotions,  create  melodramatic  situations, 
render  types  of  character  far  afield  from  either 
his  acquaintance  or  his  tastes.  And  he  has  be- 
come hopelessly  lost.  His  work  is  futile,  his 
labors  barren,  because  he  has  disclosed  neither 
the  human  sympathy  nor  the  intelligent  ob- 
servation, nor  the  technical  skill  truthfully  to 
depict  men  and  women  when  their  hearts  are 
touched  and  to  set  them  in  a  plausible  and 
sustained  story.  Such  a  piece  of  work  as 
"  Fifty  Miles  from  Boston,"  considered  as  a 
play  —  and  that,  in  spite  of  Mr.  Cohan's  ex- 


ON  TAKING   COHAN   SERIOUSLY      239 

cuses,  is  exactly  what  it  aims  to  be  —  is  so 
silly,  false  and  ineffective,  and  was  so  ridicu- 
lously played  by  its  heroine  into  the  bargain, 
that  one  is  hard  put  not  to  get  serious  about 
it,  seriously  angry.  Such  a  play  is  a  kind  of 
insult  to  our  intelligence.  And  the  attitude  of 
its  author,  this  "  I  hope  you  will  not  take  me 
seriously  "  pose  —  as  if  any  artist  that  is  n't 
worth  taking  seriously  is  worth  taking  at  all! 
—  is  a  greater  insult  still,  for  it  insults  his 
fellow  playwrights  and  his  brother  actors  as 
well  as  us.  However,  there  is  a  retribution 
so  certain  that  we  can  afford  to  keep  our 
tempers  and  pass  on  to  more  important  mat- 
ters. Mr.  Cohan's  play  fell  of  its  own  dullness 
and  falsity.  The  truth  is  mighty  and  shall 
prevail.     Even  Mr.  Cohan  cannot  stop  it. 


"THE   HONOR   OF  THE    FAMILY*' 

(Hudson,  February  19,  1908) 

ONCE  Upon  a  time  there  was  a  man  who 
hearkened  to  the  persuasive  patter  of 
a  book  agent,  and  bought  a  complete 
set  of  the  works  of  Balzac,  illustrated  with 
alleged  etchings.  He  opened  the  pages  in  one 
volume,  the  "  Droll  Stories."  This  volume  he 
has  loaned  frequently.  He  says  his  friends 
like  Balzac.  A  considerable  amount  of  popular 
appreciation  of  the  novelist  Rodin  has  immor- 
talized in  a  bath-robe  is  based  on  a  similar 
selection  from  his  writings.  This  may  be  due 
in  part  to  the  fact  that  Balzac  is  one  of  those 
authors  you  can  safely  admire  without  read- 
ing, you  can  appreciate  without  enjoying.  At 
any  rate,  it  is  doubtful  if  "  Un  Menage  de 
Gargon "  (or  "  La  Rabouilleuse,"  as  Balzac 
himself  later  preferred  to  call  it)  is  widely 
enough  known  to  act  as  a  lure  for  "  The  Honor 
of  the  Family,"  shown  in  America  by  Otis 
Skinner.  That  play  here  will  have  to  stand 
or  fall  solely  on  its  intrinsic  interest.  And  it 
can  the  more  readily  do  that,  as  it  is  only  re- 
motely  Balzac  after  all;  as  it  is  a  farcical 


"THE   HONOR   OF  THE    FAMILY"     241 

melodrama  dominated  by  Mr.  Skinner  at  his 
best. 

"  The  Honor  of  the  Family  "  is  an  English 
version  by  Paul  M.  Potter  of  "  La  Rabouil- 
leuse,"  by  Emile  Fabre,  produced  in  Paris  at 
the  Odeon  in  1903,  and  crowned  by  the  Acad- 
emy. The  French  piece  was  announced  simply 
as  "  d'apres  Balzac,"  and  one  fancies  was  per- 
haps inspired  by  old  Hochon's  remark  in  the 
novel  about  Philippe  and  Max:  "  Those  two 
fellows  rolled  up  to  meet  each  other  like  two 
storm  clouds."  The  difficulties  of  translating 
"  La  Rabouilleuse  "  may  well  excuse  the  change 
in  the  English  title,  and  in  book  and  play  alike 
Philippe  is  the  real  figure,  not  Flore,  the  fish 
whipper.  Those  who  know  the  book,  surely 
one  of  Balzac's  best,  for  all  the  sudden  de- 
velopment of  Philippe's  intellectual  powers  in 
midstory,  must  not  expect,  however,  to  find  the 
play  very  close  "  after  Balzac."  Aside  from 
the  insurmountable  difficulty  of  packing  a  Bal- 
zac novel  into  the  compass  of  an  evening  on  the 
stage,  is  the  unmitigated  villainy  of  Philippe 
himself,  one  of  the  most  abominable  and  vividly 
drawn  scoundrels  in  the  entire  "  Comedy." 
The  theater  is  not  yet  free  enough  from  con- 
vention to  endure  such  a  villain  as  a  hero! 
And  in  the  novel  there  is  Joseph  as  mitiga- 
tion, but  too  palely  drawn  to  serve  as  dramatic 
stuff.    Alas,  Balzac's  naughty  folk  are  always 

16 


242     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE    OF   TO-DAY 

his  best !  So  "  The  Honor  of  the  Family  "  is 
after  all  not  Balzac  but  a  play  suggested  by 
Balzac.  Balzac  may  thus  briefly  be  packed  off 
stage,  and  the  play  enjoyed  without  further 
thought  of  him. 

The  play  begins  when  the  novel  is  half  done 
and  concerns  itself  entirely  with  what  went  on 
in  poor  old  senile  Pere  Roiigefs  house  after 
Philippe  arrived  on  the  scene.  Instead  of  the 
sinister,  evil,  cruel,  hypocritical  monster  of  the 
book,  Philippe  is  a  swaggering  guardsman, 
more  Dumas  than  Balzac,  habitually  something 
the  sort  of  man  Petrucio  assumed  to  be.  Mr. 
Skinner  garbed  himself  in  cavalry  boots  and 
a  faded  military  frock  coat,  bought  a  loaded 
cane  and  borrowed  Oscar  Hammerstein's 
hat,  which  came  down  to  the  bridge  of 
his  nose.  Thus  picturesquely  arrayed,  he 
burst  into  the  house  of  his  uncle,  old  Rouget, 
where  Max  and  Plore  were  in  possession 
conspiring  for  the  Rouget  millions.  From 
that  moment  he  swaggered  and  swore  and 
shot  terrible  glances  from  his  brilliant  eyes, 
and  browbeat  and  cajoled  and  plotted  and 
planned,  and  had  his  will  (and  his  uncle's 
will!)  before  he  was  done.  He  killed  Max  in 
a  duel,  to  get  rid  of  him.  He  proposed  mar- 
riage to  Flore  to  get  a  firmer  hold  on  the 
fortune.  He  was  a  serio-comic  hero  out  of 
wild  romance,  delightful,  picturesque,  exuber- 


"THE   HONOR   OF   THE    FAMILY"    243 

ant  —  and  no  more  like  Balzac  than  Dumas  is 
like  Ibsen. 

The  natural  exuberance  of  Mr.  Skinner,  the 
vitality,  that  is,  of  his  style  and  personality, 
amply  fit  him  for  the  first  requirement  of  this 
role.  From  the  first  moment  when  his  head 
appears  outside  the  great  window  till  the  last 
curtain  this  exuberance  never  flags,  this  swag- 
gering, fighting,  strong-headed,  loud-mouthed 
soldier  never  lets  the  attention  lapse  from  him, 
never  lets  it  be  felt  that  his  is  not  the  domi- 
nant will.  But  Mr.  Skinner  adds  a  rare  grace 
of  plastic  movement,  a  fund  of  comedy,  now 
broad,  now  ironic,  the  force  and  distinction 
of  a  diction  learned  when  the  art  of  speech 
was  held  in  higher  esteem  than  now,  the  de- 
lights of  striking  and  significant  facial  expres- 
sion, and  finally  the  crowning  virtue  of  truth 
to  character  that  permits  him  no  possible  lapses 
into  sentimentality,  no  deviation  from  the  ideal 
laid  down  at  the  first.  It  is  a  performance 
that  has  won  for  Mr.  Skinner  in  New  York 
the  tardy  acknowledgment,  deserved  long  ago, 
that  he  is  one  of  our  leading  actors. 

The  part  of  Flore  ("La  Rabouilleuse  ")  is 
the  only  other  one  in  the  comedy  of  much  sig- 
nificance. This  was  originally  played  by  Miss 
Percy  Haswell,  without  distinction.  The  Rab- 
ouilleuse was  physically  beautiful  and  morally 
ugly.      She    was    crafty,    avaricious,    strong 


244     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

willed.  She  was  also  a  sensualist.  Miss  Has- 
well  was  the  ordinary  stock  company  leading 
woman  doing  the  ordinary  things  that  leading 
women  do  in  the  ordinary  drama.  Thus  her 
duels  with  Mr.  Skinner  were  one-sided  affairs 
from  the  beginning.  But  Mr.  Skinner's  Phil- 
ippe is  so  big  and  so  vital  and  so  picturesque 
that  many  shortcomings  can  be  overlooked  for 
its  sake  and  "  The  Honor  of  the  Family " 
cheerfully  recommended  to  all  theatergoers 
whenever  and  wherever  it  is  performed  by 
that  sterling  actor. 


CRANE  AS   A  SIX    CYLINDER  KID 

(Empire,  March  2,  1908) 

THE  latest  in  the  long  list  of  charac- 
ters assumed  by  William  H.  Crane  for 
the  delight  of  the  American  public  is 
Lemuel  Morewood,  in  George  Ade's  new  play, 
"  Father  and  the  Boys " ;  and  as  Lemuel 
Morewood  he  gave  a  convincing  and  comical 
demonstration  of  how  it  is  possible,  even  at 
fifty,  to  move  rapidly  from  a  position  fourteen 
miles  behind  the  procession  to  one  seven  miles 
ahead  of  the  band.  In  fact,  he  finally  left  the 
band  so  far  in  the  rear  that  he  had  to  go  back 
for  them.  That  is  George  Ade  for  it.  In  the 
less  poetic  language  of  the  always  dignified 
dramatic  review  Mr.  Crane  played  the  part 
of  a  country  reared  New  York  merchant  who 
had  retained,  for  all  his  money,  the  simple 
country  tastes  and  the  thrifty  country  habits 
of  his  boyhood.  But  his  two  sons  had  not. 
He  had  sent  them  to  college,  where  one  was 
graduated  with  a  *'  summa  cum  "  in  football, 
the  other  with  an  exaggerated  ambition  to 
become  a  cotillon  leader.  Taking  them  into 
the  firm  with  him.  Father  still  had  to  work 


246    THE  AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

ten  hours  a  day,  while  Thomas  boxed  with 
an  ex-lightweight  in  the  private  office,  and 
IVilliam  entertained  in  his  corner  a  society- 
leader  with  a  name  combed  in  the  middle  (a 
clever  woman,  somebody  called  her,  and  Father 
dryly  remarked  that  a  woman  had  to  be  after 
she  was  forty).  It  was  a  clear  case  of  every- 
body working  Father. 

But  Father  was  n't  that  kind  of  a  man  —  not 
for  long.  He  got  a  bit  tired  of  being  told 
that  he  was  fourteen  miles  behind  the  pro- 
cession. He  was  n't  very  strong  for  seeing 
his  sons  get  the  loafing  habit,  still  less  for 
seeing  them  fleeced  at  roulette  in  his  own 
house  by  certain  of  their  "  society  "  friends. 
So  he  drank  his  glass  of  milk  and  went 
up  to  bed,  and  then  came  down  again  in 
a  full  evening  dress  suit  (as  they  say  in 
Brooklyn),  bought  a  stack  of  yellow  chips  and 
busted  the  bank,  represented  by  Major  Bellamy 
Didszvorth,  man  about  town.  Then  he  said 
he  9;uessed  he  would  n't  play  any  more  and 
took  Bessie  Brayton,  a  Western  product,  out 
to  supper. 

That  was  Act  II,  "  The  Boys  and  Father." 
Act  III  was  just  "  Father."  He  had  reached 
the  race-track  with  his  Western  product  and 
a  "  betting  commissioner."  He  had  shed  thirty 
years  of  his  life.  He  had  n't  been  near  the 
office  for  a  month.     The  poor  boys   had  to 


CRANE  AS  A  SIX   CYLINDER   KID     247 

spend  whole  hours  there  now.  Everything 
was  coming  his  way,  even  the  ponies.  Four- 
teen miles  behind  the  procession?  He  was 
miles  ahead  and  going  stronger  every  minute. 
His  sons  were  horrified.  They  pleaded  with 
their  rebellious  parent.  But  it  was  vain.  He 
was  ofif  for  Goldfield  with  Bessie,  his  Western 
product,  and  they  after  him  to  save  him  from 
the  toils  of  a  designing  woman.  Now,  of 
course,  it  was  all  right.  Mr.  Ade  is  nothing 
if  not  moral.  The  Goldfield  trip  was  to  save 
Bessie's  mine.  It  also  gave  the  author  a  chance 
to  say  that  if  you  want  to  see  those  "  pictur- 
esque Western  costumes  "  you  must  go  to  the 
theater  in  New  York.  The  only  folks  who 
wore  them  in  his  play  were  the  Easterners. 
Bessie  saved  her  mine  and  found  her  sweet- 
heart (who  owned  the  other  half  of  the  mine, 
by  the  way,  Mr.  Ade  throwing  in  retribution 
in  full  measure).  The  Boys  were  taught  a 
lesson  and  Father  probably  returned  eventually 
to  his  nine  o'clock  game  of  checkers  and  his 
glass  of  milk. 

A  jovial,  wholesome,  boyish,  naive  story  this, 
told  with  the  utmost  spirit,  with  racy,  pictur- 
esque dialogue,  with  those  little,  half-satirical 
touches  of  observation  that  are  so  much  a  part 
of  Mr.  Ade's  charm.  It  never  goes  far  below 
the  surface,  but  it  is  human  and  it  is  appeal- 
ing.    And  for  two  acts  it  is  farce  that  often 


248    THE  AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

trembles  on  the  verge  of  comedy,  that  just 
misses  being  chiefly  interesting  not  for  its  fun 
but  for  the  really  touching  predicament  of 
Father,  his  plaintively  dry  efforts  to  make  his 
boys  realize  that  life  is  a  serious  thing.  Then 
it  sinks  rapidly  into  farce,  into  farce  that  does  n't 
quite  cover,  either,  the  joints  of  its  structure. 
But  Mr.  Ade's  fun  is  still  potent,  still  char- 
acteristic enough  to  hold  the  interest  and  carry 
the  play  to  success. 

Mr.  Crane,  of  course,  is  quite  competent  for 
the  role  of  Father.  The  under  note  of  country 
sincerit}^  of  a  warm,  generous  nature,  is  never 
lacking  in  his  performance ;  and  the  dry  humor 
of  the  character,  the  comic  perplexities,  the 
efforts  to  master  slang,  to  call  himself  a  "  Six 
Cylinder  Kid  "  without  self-consciousness,  and, 
above  all,  the  unctious  abandonment  to  juvenile 
revels,  are  all  denoted  surely,  easily,  and  with 
delightful  effect.  Mr.  Crane  has  played  bigger 
parts  in  better  plays,  but  "  Father  and  the 
Boys  "  has  the  breath  of  wholesome  fun  in  it, 
and  it  will  be  welcome  on  our  stage  so  long  as 
Mr.  Crane  cares  to  keep  it  in  his  repertoire. 


"TODDLES"    AS    A    TEXT 

(Garrick,  March  i6,  1908) 

WE  are  minded  to  preach  a  sermon 
with  "  Toddles  "  as  the  text.  For 
"  Toddles  "  curiously  invites  to  the 
consideration  of  serious  things,  even  if  it  is  an 
adaptation  by  Clyde  Fitch  from  the  French. 
That  is  n't  exactly  what  its  authors  intended 
when  they  wrote  it,  nor  what  Mr.  Barrymore 
intended  when  he  played  it.  But  if,  as  Heine  re- 
marks, "  even  in  the  highest  pathos  of  the  World 
Tragedy  bits  of  fun  slip  in;  the  desperate  re- 
publican who,  like  Brutus,  plunged  a  knife  to 
his  heart  perhaps  smelt  it  first  to  see  whether 
some  one  had  not  split  a  herring  with  it,"  it  is 
equally  true  that  in  the  maddest  fun  of  theatri- 
cal farce  bits  of  seriousness  slip  in.  The  des- 
perate reviewer  sitting  at  the  Garrick  Theater 
even  as  he  watched  Toddles  in  his  mad  efforts 
to  avoid  making  up  his  mind  was  inevitably 
reminded  of  poor  Benjamin  Constant. 

And  who,  pray,  was  Benjamin  Constant? 

Benjamin  Constant  was  a  man,  in  the  words 
of  Professor  James,  "  often  marvelled  at  as  an 
extraordinary  instance  of  superior  intelligence 


250    THE   AMERICAN  STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

with  inferior  character."  At  least  he  accom- 
pHshed  this  —  he  made  many  foot-notes  for 
learned  books  on  psychology.  But  he  himself, 
as  recorded  in  his  ''Journal"  (Paris,  1895), 
did  not  foresee  any  such  useful,  not  to  say  ex- 
alted, outcome  to  his  life.  ''  I  am  tossed  and 
dragged  about  by  my  miserable  weakness,"  he 
writes.  *'  Never  was  anything  so  ridiculous 
as  my  indecision.  Now  marriage,  now  soli- 
tude; now  Germany,  now  France;  hesitation 
upon  hesitation,  and  all  because  at  bottom  I 
am  unable  to  give  up  anything." 

Is  it  possible  that  the  Frenchmen  who  first 
gave  Toddles  life,  M.  Tristan  Bernard  and  M. 
Andre  Godfernaux,  were  acquainted  with  the 
classic  case  of  Mr.  Constant?  Or  is  it  simply 
that  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  is  many  in  the  land? 
At  any  rate  if  Toddles  had  been  capable  of 
introspection  and  possessed  of  the  needful  in- 
telligence to  set  down  what  he  saw  he  could 
have  written  of  himself  in  these  very  words  of 
the  inconstant  Mr.  Constant.  For  Toddles  too 
was  beset  by  "  an  all  round  amiability  " ;  he 
was  unable  to  get  mad  at  any  of  his  alterna- 
tives, or,  which  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  he 
could  get  mad  at  all  of  them  by  turns.  And 
so  he  too  was  incapable  of  action,  could  not 
make  up  his  mind.  Now  the  act  of  making 
up  one's  mind  is  by  no  means  so  simple  and 
voluntary  a  matter  as  some  of  us  suppose.    We 


"TODDLES"  AS  A  TEXT  251 

are  all  at  best  a  bundle  of  warring  impulses 
and  inhibitions.  "  Act,"  says  an  impulse. 
*'  Don't  act,"  says  an  inhibition.  And  whether 
we  act  or  not  depends  far  less  often  than  one 
would  like  to  admit  on  our  "  will  power,"  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term.  It  depends 
on  the  relative  force  of  the  impulse  and  the 
inhibition.  A  soldier  stands  irresolute  in  ac- 
tion. His  will  power  cannot  drive  him  to  ad- 
vance. But  his  comrades  sweep  by  with  a  yell 
and  a  cheer.  The  impulse  is  suddenly  strength- 
ened. Before  he  knows  it  he  is  looking  into 
the  mouth  of  a  cannon.  Or  his  comrades  sweep 
by  the  other  way,  and  with  equal  unconscious- 
ness he  is  in  full  flight.  "  Buy  that  necktie  in 
the  window  "  says  the  impulse.  "  Don't  buy 
it,"  says  the  inhibition  of  prudence,  "  you  have 
already  far  more  than  you  need."  And  you 
walk  on  half  a  block.  But  your  feet  drag  at 
the  corner,  and  presently  you  are  back  inside 
the  store,  waiting  for  change.  Impulse  has 
won,  has  caused  you  to  act,  has  made  up  your 
mind  for  you  because  your  passion  for  neck- 
ties is  stronger  than  your  sense  of  prudence. 
But  if  on  the  corner  you  had  recalled  that  your 
money  was  needed  for  your  sick  mother  or 
your  own  dinner  you  would  not  have  gone 
back,  because  prudence,  re-enforced  by  this 
other  inhibition,  would  have  carried  the  day. 
Let  any  one  bring  back  to  mind  the  things  he 


252    THE  AMERICAN   STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

has  done  in  sudden  anger  or  under  the  stim- 
ulus of  any  strong  passion  or  excitement  that 
he  would  not  have  dreamed  of  doing  under 
normal  circumstances,  could  not  have  "  willed  " 
himself  to  do,  and  it  may  become  apparent  that 
the  so-called  "  lack  of  will  power,"  the  pathetic 
incapacity  for  action,  inability  to  make  up  the 
mind,  which  seems  to  stunt  so  many  lives,  is 
in  reality  but  a  lack  of  genius  for  emotion,  a 
weakness  of  impulse,  so  that  the  inhibitions 
habitually  win  the  day,  and  the  career  of  that 
man  is  barren. 

Now  Toddles  had  an  inhibitive  mind.  The 
intensity  of  his  feelings  was  always  below  the 
discharging  point,  as  the  psychologists  would 
say,  since  they  know  that  any  feeling,  if  strong 
enough,  is  bound  to  discharge  itself  into  action 
of  some  kind  or  other.  Toddles  was  not 
ignorant  of  what  he  wanted  or  of  what  he 
did  n't  want.  He  simply  did  n't  want  anything 
hard  enough,  did  n't  repudiate  anything  hard 
enough,  to  drive  his  inhibitions  of  laziness, 
love  of  luxury,  and  the  rest  to  the  wall  and 
ring  from  him  a  definite  Yes  or  No.  Toddles 
knew  that  marriage  would  bring  him  greatly 
needed  money  and  companionship  which  he 
desired.  But  there  were  a  pack  of  inhibitions 
not  unknown  to  bachelors  before  now  which 
barred  the  way,  and  he  could  not  make  up  his 
mind  to  overcome  them,  because  his  impulses 


"TODDLES"   AS   A  TEXT  253 

were  not  strong  enough.  On  the  other  hand, 
after  he  had  once  been  definitely  pledged  to 
matrimony  the  negative  impulse  to  resist  was 
not  intense  enough  to  conquer,  and  Toddles 
finally  got  out  of  bed  on  his  wedding  morning 
and  into  his  tub  unable  to  see  his  way  out  of 
his  dilemma.  But  while  he  was  tubbing  his 
clothes  were  stolen.  The  way  out  was  found 
for  him.  He  did  not  have  to  make  up  his  mind 
at  all!  With  a  cry  of  pathetic  joy  he  leaped 
back  into  bed,  where  he  lay,  the  sorry  symbol 
of  chronic  irresolution. 

And  the  tragedy  of  Toddles  is  the  moral 
tragedy  of  human  life,  that  comes  about,  not 
because  we  do  not  know  the  higher  from  the 
lower  way,  right  from  wrong,  wise  from  fool- 
ish, but  because  our  impulses  for  the  high,  the 
right,  the  wise  do  not  possess  sufficient  explo- 
sive force  to  conquer  our  inhibitions.  Some 
one  has  said  that  "  life  is  one  long  contradic- 
tion between  knowledge  and  action."  No  one 
in  this  world  knows  better  the  upper  from  the 
nether  road  than  the  hopeless  failures,  the 
lights  that  failed,  the  men  of  early  promise, 
of  brilliant  minds  and  no  achievement,  the 
critics  who  do  not  construct,  the  reformers  who 
only  chatter.  "  As  far  as  moral  insight  goes," 
James  remarks  of  such  men,  **  in  comparison 
with  them  the  ordinary  and  prosperous  philis- 
tines  whom  they  scandalize  are  sucking  babes." 


254    THE  AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

And  he  cites  Rousseau  and  Restif,  men  who, 
knowing  the  higher,  could  only  follow  the 
lower  road,  because  only  there  were  their  im- 
pulses strong  enough  to  discharge  into  action. 
But  even  for  such  men  an  impulse  sufficiently 
re-enforced  will  alter  all  their  lives.  Just  as 
fear  can  convert  a  criminal  into  a  saint,  just 
as  the  news  of  Juliet's  death  roused  Romeo 
into  a  man  of  action,  the  sudden  blossoming  of 
something  akin  to  real  affection  in  Toddles  ral- 
lied his  scattered  impulses,  drove  his  habitual 
inhibitions  in  a  pack  out  of  his  brain  and  con- 
verted the  wavering,  hesitating,  irresolute,  ter- 
rified victim  at  the  matrimonial  altar  into  an 
ardent  lover  fearlessly  facing  the  marriage 
ring.  It  may  be  love  is  a  kind  of  madness,  but 
madness  has  given  the  courage  for  more  mighty 
deeds  (madness  and  anger)  than  "  will  power  " 
ever  did.  Toddles's  case  is  a  shining  example 
of  the  dynamic  force  of  the  ruling  passion. 

But  this  being  a  sermon,  it  is  time  now  for 
the  moral.  And  the  moral  is,  "  Acting  is  not 
so  easy  as  it  looks." 

For  why  else  rear  this  towering  superstruc- 
ture of  psychology  on  the  poor  little  foundation 
of  "  Toddles  "  than  to  make  plain  the  reason 
why  the  play  here,  with  John  Barrymore,  was 
not  the  success  it  was  in  London,  with  Cyril 
Maude?  Mr.  Maude  is  an  actor  of  varied 
powers  and  wide  experience.    Only  a  year  ago 


"TODDLES"  AS  A  TEXT  255 

he  was  playing  James  A.  Heme's  famous  part 
in  "  Shore  Acres."  From  Nathaniel  Berry  to 
Toddles  is  a  very  considerable  register.  To 
say  that  he  was  a  success  as  Toddles  because 
the  part  fitted  him  is  not  to  explain  his  success 
in  scores  of  dissimilar  parts.  It  is  the  actor's 
business  to  fit  his  part,  not  to  make  the  part  fit 
him.  It  is  his  business  to  have  a  technique 
that  will  accommodate  itself  to  any  and  all  de- 
mands. And  such  a  technique  is  not  acquired 
in  a  day,  a  month,  a  year,  nor  by  intuition  or 
inheritance.  It  is  acquired  by  playing  many 
parts,  by  practice,  practice,  practice.  No  one 
supposes  that  Sembrich  could  sing  the  songs 
of  every  mood  and  period  with  flawless  art 
and  careful  dififerentiation  without  a  vocal 
technique  won  by  years  of  effort  and  a  wide 
acquaintance  with  all  schools  of  music.  Yet 
the  idea  seems  to  prevail  that  an  actor  can  play 
any  part,  so  long  as  it  chances  to  "  fit "  his 
personality,  with  almost  no  technique  at  all. 
We  would  not  accept  a  violinist  whose  bowing 
was  faulty,  whose  intonation  was  false,  who 
failed  to  interpret  the  music  he  played,  merely 
because  we  liked  his  face,  his  smile,  his  "  per- 
sonality." But  as  a  public  we  are  very  far 
from  even  this  rather  fundamental  standard 
of  criticism  where  acting  is  concerned.  We 
care  no  more  for  the  technique  of  acting  than 
some  of  the  players  we  applaud. 


256    THE  AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

That  is  not  quite  true  either,  for  in  the  long 
run  we  unconsciously  bow  to  greatness,  to 
superior  skill,  and  forget  our  inefficient  favor- 
ites of  the  moment.  Gradually  the  Sotherns, 
the  Skinners,  emerge  and  take  their  rightful 
places.  But  it  would  save  time  if  we  were  a 
bit  more  conscious  about  it.  There  would  be 
less  temptation  then  for  managers,  who  in  all 
truth  are  hard  enough  put  to  find  efficient 
players,  to  cast  young  men  and  women  of  pleas- 
ant personality  in  parts  beyond  their  powers, 
thus  making  of  plays  that  might  give  pleasure 
at  most  but  half-hearted  successes. 

For  Mr.  Barrymore,  the  bearer  of  a  distin- 
guished and  honorable  name  in  the  stage 
world,  young,  attractive,  promising,  is  still 
technically  unequipped  for  the  part  of  Toddles. 
The  play  is  a  farce,  light,  frivolous;  the  part 
is  a  farcical  part.  But  so  is  Dundreary  a  far- 
cical part;  yet  Sothern  waited  till  he  could 
play  Hamlet  before  he  attempted  it.  If  a  farce 
has  the  qualities  of  genuine  popularity  (and 
"Toddles"  has)  it  has  them  because  it  exag- 
gerates humanity,  not  falsifies  it.  And  you 
cannot  exaggerate  a  trait  of  character  if  you 
cannot  depict  it  in  its  natural  state.  You  can- 
not create  a  farcical  character,  clean-cut,  con- 
sistent from  curtain  to  curtain,  an  entity,  if 
you  cannot  maintain  a  character  delusion  with- 
out exaggeration.    If  we  loaded  poor  Toddles 


"TODDLES"  AS  A  TEXT  257 

with  text-book  phrases  out  of  psychology  it 
was  to  show  the  human  basis  of  his  character 
—  the  basis  which,  if  clearly  brought  out  by 
a  resourceful  actor,  would  make  him,  for  all 
his  farce,  a  human  being  to  the  audience.  But 
to  bring  this  out  requires  a  sure  technique; 
for  the  actor  it  is  a  solemn  task,  no  less  diffi- 
cult than  to  play  many  a  "  serious  "  role. 

No  one  has  ever  gone  on  record  as  accusing 
Mr.  Sothern  of  being,  personally,  at  all  like 
Dundreary.  In  fact,  the  dissimilarity  might 
almost  be  called  striking.  But  Mr.  Sothern's 
Dundreary  in  the  play  is  comic,  first  and  fore- 
most, for  its  unflagging  fidelity  to  character, 
its  unity  of  design,  its  constant  revelations  in 
a  hundred  little  ways  of  a  very  human  if  mon- 
strously exaggerated  type  of  brain.  Nothing 
that  he  says  or  does,  no  single  chuckle  or  facial 
expression  but  clearly  reveals  this  central  psy- 
chological conception.  And  to  do  this  requires 
technique,  technique,  and  again  technique. 
Not  a  single  halted  utterance  or  sudden  con- 
centration of  attention  in  the  search  for  his 
pockets,  but  is  the  surer,  hence  the  more  comic, 
for  the  musing  moods  of  Hamlet.  Not  a  single 
cry  of  triumph  at  the  solution  of  an  absurd 
conundrum,  but  is  more  effective  for  the  ro- 
mantic heroism  of  "  Zenda  "  or  "  If  I  Were 
King."  That  is  so  true  it  is  platitudinous; 
but  please  remember  this  is  a  sermon ! 

17 


258    THE  AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

Now  Toddles  in  his  lesser  way  had  his  psy- 
chological basis  of  character ;  he  was  a  human, 
if  exaggerated,  entity.  He  was  a  man  who 
could  n't  make  up  his  mind,  a  baby  in  long 
breeches.  Mr.  Barrymore  knew  this,  and  he 
tried  as  best  he  could  to  indicate  it.  But  his 
task  was  too  much  for  him,  and  he  was  only 
occasionally  successful,  simply  because  he 
lacked  technique,  he  had  not  the  trained  re- 
sources of  his  art  sufficiently  at  his  command. 
His  Toddles  did  not  "  hang  together,"  the 
moods  from  moment  to  moment  were  not 
clearly  related  to  the  character  as  a  whole,  and 
in  their  several  places  they  were  not  indicated 
surely,  cleanly.  His  command  over  facial  ex- 
pression is  slight.  His  command  over  accent 
is  slighter.  He  feels  for  effects  restlessly, 
with  hands,  voice,  body,  and  creates  the  sense 
of  effort,  not  of  achievement.  To  be  sure,  he 
was  constantly  hindered,  not  helped,  by  a  badly 
trained  company.  But  the  cause  of  his  failure 
was  deeper  than  that;  it  lay  in  the  actor  him- 
self, in  his  lack  of  technique.  If  Mr.  Barry- 
more,  like  Mr.  Maude,  could  play  Nathaniel 
Berry,  he  too,  like  Mr.  Maude  could  play  Tod- 
dles. Life  may  be  a  survival  of  the  fittest,  but 
actors  too  often  suppose  it  to  be  a  survival  of 
the  best  fitted.  Well,  it  is  —  only,  not  quite 
the  way  they  mean. 


WHERE    IS    OUR    DRAMA    OF    '76? 

(Garden,  April  20,  1908) 

ONCE  upon  the  Fourth  of  July  a  patri- 
otic American  visited  a  London  music 
hall  where  a  "  human  encyclopaedia  " 
was  answering  questions  such  as  "  In  what 
year  did  Milosh  Orenevertch  knock  Kara 
George  on  the  head  and  start  the  feud  in  Ser- 
via  ?  "  or  "  How  many  pins  laid  in  a  row  would 
it  take  to  reach  from  London  to  Paris  ?  "  and 
the  American  asked,  "  What  great  event  took 
place  on  the  Fourth  of  July?"  The  human 
encyclopaedia  walked  well  down  to  the  foot- 
lights angrily.  "  That  wa'h  n't  no  great 
event,"  said  he,  "  that  were  a  bloomin' 
houtrage !  " 

Why  is  it  that  this  "bloomin'  houtrage," 
which  is  a  towering  point  in  American  history, 
which  has  been  productive  of  more  fire-crack- 
ers, burned  fingers  and  fervid  perorations 
than  any  other  event  in  our  career  as  a  nation, 
has  never  had  adequate  representation  on  our 
stage  —  it  nor  any  event  of  our  War  for  In- 
dependence?   Why  is  it  that  the  New  Theater, 


260    THE  AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

when  it  opens  on  Central  Park  West  will 
find  no  American  historical  drama  of  our 
early  and  surely  dramatic  days  worthy  of 
a  place  in  its  repertoire?  Why  have  all 
the  plays  about  the  Revolution,  from  the 
first  years  after  that  struggle  down  to  Ed- 
ward Vroom's  *'  The  Luck  of  Macgregor " 
at  the  Garden  Theater,  been  comparative  fail- 
ures? "Why  have  they  been  failures?"  say 
you.  "  Why,  because  they  have  been  such  bad 
plays."  Granted;  but  that  really  explains 
nothing,  any  more  than  the  managerial  tradi- 
tion that  "  the  public  does  n't  want  such  plays  " 
explains  anything,  being  a  statement  not  of 
cause  but  effect,  the  effect  of  bad  dramas.  To 
answer  the  question  one  must  find  out  why  our 
War  for  Independence  has  not  inspired  good 
plays,  why  it  has  not  produced  a  drama  to 
satisfy  the  historical  sense,  to  rouse  patriotic 
enthusiasm  and  meet  also  the  require- 
ments of  the  dramatic  form.  Surely  there  is  at 
least  one  big  play  in  the  Revolution.  There 
must  be,  since  none  has  ever  come  out! 
Has  it  remained  there  through  accident  or 
necessity? 

The  attempts  to  coax  it  forth  have  been  as 
the  sands  on  the  shore.  They  began  almost  as 
soon  as  the  war  was  over.  And  here  is  a 
witness  that  they  are  still  going  on.  But  who 
remembers  them?    Let  us  name  a  few  in  New 


WHERE  IS   OUR   DRAMA   OF    '76?      261 

York  City.  There  was  "  Bunker  Hill ;  or, 
The  Death  of  General  Warren,"  at  the  John 
Street  Theater  in  1797.  Next  came  William 
Dunlap's  "  Andre,"  a  year  later.  At  the  Park 
Theater  in  1823  "  Green  Mountain  Boys  "  was 
tried  in  February,  *'  The  Battle  of  Lexington  " 
in  July.  There  was  "  The  Battle  of  Brandy- 
wine  "  at  the  Chatham  Theater  in  1856.  The 
same  year  came  "  New  York  Patriots,  or  the 
Battle  of  Saratoga,"  at  Barnum's,  "  with  Con- 
tinental uniforms  and  a  considerable  outlay  in 
scenery."  Edward  Eddy  used  to  play  Long 
Tom  CoiHn  in  a  Paul  Jones  drama  in  the  70's. 
In  1887  the  late  David  Lloyd  produced  a  play 
of  old  New  York  in  Revolutionary  war  time, 
called  "  The  Dominie's  Daughter,"  at  Wal- 
lack's.  The  scene  was  laid  around  Beek- 
man  Street.  Kyrle  Bellew  was  the  star. 
Failure  was  the  fate.  Then  later  we  saw 
Victor  Mapes's  attempt  in  "  Capt.  Barring- 
ton  "  to  dramatize  George  Washington. 
James  A.  Heme  wrote  "  The  Minute  Men  " 
in  the  8o's.  Clyde  Fitch,  who  broke  through 
into  success  with  "  Nathan  Hale,"  failed 
dismally  with  "  Major  Andre."  After  the 
opening  night  of  the  latter  piece,  by  the 
way,  somebody  said  to  the  manager :  "  You 
might  have  known  better.  Spy  plays  al- 
ways fail."  "  But  how  was  I  to  know  it 
was    a    spy   play    when    I    accepted    it?"    he 


262    THE  AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

answered.      Even    theatrical    managers    can't 
know  everything. 

This  Httle  hst  represents  but  a  tithe  of  the 
attempts  to  make  a  play  out  of  the  Revolution. 
Yet  not  one  of  the  dramas  remains  in  the 
repertoire  of  the  American  theater,  not  one  of 
them  has  risen  above  the  moment  to  be  dra- 
matic literature,  to  perpetuate  dramatically  the 
historical  background  of  our  national  life. 
That  background  is  receding  further  and 
further  into  the  mists  of  the  past.  To  H.  G. 
Wells,  an  Englishman,  it  seemed  already  as  re- 
mote as  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  To  us,  though 
tradition  still  lingers  on  in  New  England  and 
hatred  of  the  English  is  inculcated  with  every 
game  of  lead  soldiers  on  the  garden  paths,  it 
is  growing  sometimes  almost  as  remote,  and 
the  Fourth  of  July  perorations  have  a  curious 
flavor  of  antiquity.  In  the  early  days  of  the 
last  century,  when  memory  of  the  struggle 
was  still  fresh  and  the  nation  was  still  trying 
its  young  limbs  with  the  tingle  of  novelty  in 
every  leap  and  blow,  grateful  for  its  release, 
there  were  no  American  dramatists  with  the 
technical  skill  to  write  any  sort  of  drama.  And 
now,  when  our  dramatists  have  acquired  or 
are  acquiring  the  technical  skill,  the  present  is 
too  full  of  problems,  the  future  too  engrossing, 
the  past  too  remote,  for  them  to  be  interested  in 
the  Revolution.     We  are  at  once  too  old  and 


WHERE   IS   OUR   DRAMA  OF   '76?      263 

not  old  enough  as  a  nation  to  make  copy  of 
our  past.  Perhaps  that  is  the  real  reason  why 
the  historical  drama  of  1776  does  not  get 
written. 

An  American  student  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution has  computed  that  if  a  man  beginning  in 
youth  should  read  ten  hours  a  day  till  he  was 
ninety  he  could  just  get  through  the  mass  of  ma- 
terial at  present  in  print  about  that  struggle. 
Much  of  this  material  was  not  written  by 
Frenchmen,  but  the  French  have  contributed 
their  share,  no  little  of  it  in  the  form  of  drama. 
Sardou  in  his  later  years  turns  back  to  this 
fruitful  field.  And  some  of  these  dramas  have 
been  no  less  popular  in  England  and  America 
than  in  France,  no  less  popular  than  "  The  Only 
Way,"  the  French  Revolution  seen  through 
Dickens's  sentimental  spectacles.  This  does  not 
mean  that  we  Americans  are  more  interested 
in  the  events  of  '93  than  those  of  'yd,  even  if 
they  were  more  packed  with  blood  and  fury, 
full  of  a  more  concentrated  and  tumultuous 
rebellion.  It  simply  means  that  the  historic 
sense  is  more  developed  in  French  dramatists, 
fuses  more  harmoniously  with  the  dramatic 
sense,  and  these  dramas,  of  historic  signifi- 
cance, to  be  sure,  are  also  —  and  for  us  pri- 
marily —  interesting  and  absorbing  stage  sto- 
ries. Possibly  it  is  easier  to  write  a  good  play 
about  the  French  Revolution  than  about  ours  — 


264    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

there  is  more  material  and  vastly  more  examples 
to  profit  by.  But  the  chief  reason  why  better 
plays  are  written  about  it  is  that  better  minds 
are  brought  to  bear  on  the  task,  it  is  regarded 
more  seriously,  treated  with  more  historical 
knowledge,  the  result  looked  upon  as  a  part  of 
the  great  monument  alike  of  French  literature 
and  French  tradition.  Neither  toward  our  his- 
tory nor  our  stage  have  we  yet  reached  this 
standard.  And  until  we  do  the  drama  of  '76 
is  not  likely  to  be  coaxed  forth. 

When  G.  B.  Shaw  wrote  "  The  Devil's 
Disciple  "  he  was  not  so  much  minded  to  flat- 
ter us  as  to  rap  the  British.  The  scene  might 
quite  as  well  have  been  laid  in  South  Africa. 
G.  B.  evidently  became  enamored  of  "  Gentle- 
manly Johnny  "  Burgoyne  and  wanted  to  use 
him  in  a  play.  In  an  amusing  stage  direction 
we  read:  "  Burgoyne  is  boundlessly  delighted 
by  this  retort  [of  Richard's],  which  almost 
reconciles  him  to  the  loss  of  America."  Just 
how  an  actor  is  to  express  in  pantomime  recon- 
ciliation to  the  loss  of  America  is  not  stated. 
But  G.  B.'s  idea  of  American  geography  is  rud- 
imentary. Somehow  or  other  the  British  under 
Burgoyne  are  in  New  Hampshire,  where  one 
of  them  says,  "  I  will  undertake  to  do  what  we 
have  marched  south  (sic!)  from  Boston  to  do." 
They  did  not  march  from  Boston,  but  Canada; 
they  were  in  the  New  Hampshire  "  Grants," 


WHERE   IS   OUR   DRAMA  OF   '76?      265 

now  Vermont,  and  Burgoyne  was  not  with 
them.  The  town  boasts  of  a  Presbyterian 
church,  which  is  almost  as  astonishing  as  Bur- 
goyne's  presence  there.  There  is  no  nasal 
twang  in  the  speech  of  the  Yankees.  They 
talk  Shawese.  This  is  n't  a  play  of  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution.  It  is  just  another  toot  of  G. 
B.'s  horn  from  his  cart-tail.  In  his  preface  he 
gloats  over  the  fact  that  when  Mansfield  pro- 
duced "  The  Devil's  Disciple  "  in  America  in 
1897  we  hailed  it  as  original,  when,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  its  episodes,  complications,  all  its  melo- 
dramatic structure  is  old  as  —  as  melodrama. 
What  has  that  got  to  do  with  the  case?  No- 
body cared  about  its  structure.  A  musician 
went  to  "  Pelleas  et  Melisande  "  at  the  Man- 
hattan last  winter,  coming  away  to  rave  about 
Mary  Garden  and  the  drama.  *'  But  the  mu- 
sic?" he  was  asked.  "Oh,  the  music,"  said 
he  —  "  the  music  did  n't  bother  me."  That 's 
about  the  case  with  the  story  in  "  The  Devil's 
Disciple."  The  wit,  the  equivoke,  the  "  dia- 
bolonian  ethics,"  the  sense  of  a  new,  humorous 
and  keenly  alert  mind  playing  over  and  about 
a  subject  were  (with  Mansfield's  acting)  what 
pleased  us  then,  as  they  have  pleased  us  since 
in  other  plays  by  G.  B.  Shaw.  Being  all  Shaw 
they  are  all  original.  But  by  the  same  token, 
"  The  Devil's  Disciple  "  is  n't  a  play  about  the 
Revolution  —  it  is  n't  an  American  historical 
drama. 


266    THE   AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

But  for  all  its  historical  inaccuracy,  its  lack 
of  true  color  and  atmosphere,  its  emphasis  not 
on  the  American  point  of  view  but  on  the 
Shavian,  it  is  the  nearest  thing  we  have  to  a 
Revolutionary  War  play,  because  it  brings  to 
bear  on  the  subject  more  style  and  inteUigence. 
Mr.  Vroom  marched  his  red  coats  in  and  out 
in  ''  The  Luck  of  Macgregor  "  with  the  same 
scene  showing  behind  Fort  George  as  behind 
Spuyten  Duyvil.  He  did  not  even  attempt  to 
show  that  rounded  end  of  Manhattan  Island, 
that  dome  of  rock  and  woods,  which  must  look 
even  to-day  something  as  it  did  then  save  per- 
haps for  the  change  to  second  growth  timber 
—  the  only  spot  on  our  island  that  still  speaks 
of  the  vanished  days.  Mr.  Vroom  not  only 
failed  to  make  a  melodrama  that  hung  together 
plausibly  as  Shaw's  does,  but  he  failed  even 
more  conspicuously  than  Shaw  to  create  any 
true  atmosphere  or  color.  And  as  for  wit  or 
style  or  satire  or  character  interest,  his  play 
was  as  barren  as  a  musical  comedy.  At  least 
Dick  Dudgeon,  if  he  primarily  preaches  Shav- 
ian philosophy,  is  fired  by  an  under  impulse 
of  real  patriotism.  At  least  the  Presbyterian 
parson,  if  he  in  reality  should  have  been  a  Con- 
gregational Calvinist,  glows  with  a  hint  of  the 
passions  that  blazed  up  at  Lexington  and  kept 
our  army  from  freezing  at  Valley  Forge.  Per- 
verse melodrama  "  The  Devil's  Disciple  "  may 


WHERE   IS   OUR  DRAMA   OF  '76?       267 

be,  and  not  American.  But  it  is  a  man's  play 
at  any  rate.  It  is  grown  up.  It  does  not  insult 
our  Revolution,  belittle  our  history.  Such 
trivial,  puerile,  theatrical,  pretty  pasteboard 
and  red-coated  concoctions  as  "  The  Luck  of 
Macgregor  "  do  belittle  our  history,  insult  our 
Revolution.  We  are  quite  right  in  refusing  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  them. 

But  we  are  not  right  in  supposing  that  be- 
cause these  bad  plays  fail  to  interest  us  all 
plays  about  our  early  struggle  are  doomed  to 
failure.  The  American  drama  is  just  now 
waking  up  to  look  about  with  a  man's  eyes, 
to  put  ideas  and  speculations  and  comment 
where  a  few  silly  sentiments  before  did  duty. 
Great  Divides  and  Witching  Hours  are  suc- 
ceeding the  trivialities  of  the  past.  The  drama 
is  waking  up,  too,  thanks  in  no  small  measure 
to  Mr.  Belasco,  to  the  charm  and  genuine  in- 
terest of  correct  detail  and  atmosphere.  Our 
stage,  in  other  words,  is  reaching  a  point  where 
a  drama  of  the  Revolution  could  be  written  and 
presented  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the  theme 
and  satisfactory  to  a  public  that  are  not  always 
such  fools  as  some  folks  would  have  us  believe. 
It  would  be  a  drama  in  which  the  "  ragged 
regimentals  "  of  the  Continental  militia  and  the 
red  coats  of  the  British  did  not  have  to  do 
duty  at  all  times  for  the  atmosphere;  where 
the  spy  plot  —  its  possibilities  surely  stretched 


268    THE   AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

nearly  to  the  end  by  Gillette  in  "  Secret  Ser- 
vice "  —  did  not  have  to  do  duty  for  the  story; 
where  the  passion  for  the  cause  of  liberty  was 
the  true  motive  of  action,  not  the  traditional 
and  silly  "  love  motive  "  of  conventional  drama, 
and  where  the  splendid  characters  of  some  of 
our  early  heroes  found  adequate  expression 
and  development.  To  write  such  a  play  is,  less 
than  ever  as  the  past  recedes,  not  a  task  for  any 
but  a  first  rate  talent.  And  our  men  of  first 
rate  talents  are  just  now  too  preoccupied  with 
problems  of  the  present  to  turn  back  into  his- 
tory for  their  themes.  That  is,  no  doubt,  a 
healthful  sign.  But  the  busiest  market-place 
is  the  better  for  a  monument,  none  the  less ;  the 
preservation  of  landmarks  has  more  than  a 
sentimental  value.  And  dramas  that  shall 
worthily  set  forth  our  early  history  as  a  nation 
must,  after  all,  be  the  basis  of  a  national  reper- 
toire, if  we  are  ever  to  have  a  national  reper- 
toire. England  more  fortunate,  has  in  her 
repertoire  classics  of  every  period  to  perpetuate 
those  periods  on  the  stage.  We  in  America 
had  no  drama  of  our  own  worthy  of  the  name 
till  very  recent  years.  If  we  are  to  perpetu- 
ate our  past  at  all  we  must  reconstruct  it.  And 
because  any  task  of  historical  reconstruction 
requires  unusual  knowledge  and  power,  the 
drama  of  the  Revolution  is  «till  unwritten.  But 
sooner  or  later  now,   with  the  expansion  of 


WHERE   IS  OUR  DRAMA  OF  '76?     269 

ideas  in  the  American  theater,  the  development 
of  adult  consciousness  in  the  native  playwright, 
it  is  bound  to  come.  Perhaps  it  will  arrive  in 
time  to  dedicate  the  National  Theater.  It  is 
as  easy  to  cherish  two  dreams  as  one! 


AUDIENCES  — A  SPRING  GROUCH 

WAS  it  Richard  Hovey  who  said  that 
''  Success  is  in  the  silences,  though 
fame  is  in  the  song  "  ?  Those  words 
came  floating  up  in  my  memory  as  I  sat  at  a  per- 
formance of  "  The  Governor  and  the  Boss  "  in 
the  Lincoln  Square  Theater,  a  home  of  the 
cheap  stock  company,  starting  a  long  train  of 
suggestion  and  speculation  that  was  hardly  to 
be  switched  upon  a  siding  even  by  the  appear- 
ance of  Mamma  Spooner  before  the  curtain  to 
tell  the  audience  what  a  fine  company  was  hers. 
What  roused  the  memory  was  the  attitude  of 
the  audience  toward  the  play.  Few  dramas  are 
as  interesting  as  the  attitude  of  the  audience 
toward  them.  In  this  case  the  attitude  of  the 
audience  was,  after  the  first  act,  all  that  was 
interesting.  It  was  a  curious  audience,  curi- 
ous, that  is,  to  one  accustomed  only  to  the 
theaters  in  the  bright  light  district.  Small 
girls  and  vacant  chairs  were  in  the  majority. 
But  the  shrill  pipings  of  infants  could  be  heard 
here  and  there,  presupposing  the  presence  of 
mothers  determined  to  escape  in  Art  for  the 
hour  the  petty  bounds  of  domestic  routine,  even 
at  the  cost  of  disturbing  other  people.     And 


AUDIENCES  — A  SPRING   GROUCH      271 

there  were  stout  women  who  ate  candy  during 
and  between  the  acts,  a  few  wise  eyed  youths 
and  some  men.  The  play  was  quite  new; 
hence,  perhaps,  the  vacant  chairs.  But  there 
was  nothing  new  about  Edna  May  Spooner, 
the  star.  Everybody  knew  her,  palpitated  with 
admiration  at  her  entrance,  accorded  her  hearty 
applause,  and  listened  attentively  and  with  no 
sign  of  disapproval  to  her  monotonous,  arti- 
ficial manner  of  speech. 

As  the  drama  got  under  way,  disclosing  it- 
self as  an  attempt,  however  inadequate  and 
clumsy,  to  reproduce  modern  political  condi- 
tions on  the  stage,  the  attitude  of  this  audience 
if  not  one  of  baffled  intelligence  was  at  least 
one  of  impassivity,  of  tolerant  expectation. 
Girls  and  mothers,  chocolate  cream  fattened 
females  and  wise  eyed  youths  waited  patiently 
for  the  "  love  scenes,"  the  "  comic  relief,"  the 
"  emotional  situations  "  instinct  and  experience 
taught  them  would  eventually  come.  The  part 
of  the  Boss  was  very  well  played.  In  act  one 
the  Boss  came  to  see  young  Graham,  Inde- 
pendent candidate  for  Governor,  and  Graham 
burst  out  into  an  oration  denouncing  him,  de- 
claring that  he  would  never  withdraw  in  favor 
of  the  regular  party  candidate.  The  Boss 
waited  impassively  till  he  was  done.  "  Are 
you  all  through  orating?"  he  asked  dryly. 
''Then   let's    really   talk."      And   he   quietly 


272    THE   AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

spiked  the  reformer's  guns  by  stating  that  he 
had  called  to  announce  the  withdrawal  of  his 
candidate,  not  to  suggest  the  withdrawal  of 
Graham.  It  was  a  scene  capitally  conceived, 
disclosing  the  essential  characteristics  of  each 
man  by  means  of  speech  or  action,  and 
shrewdly  humorous  in  its  unexpected  twist  of 
climax.  Yet  the  audience,  though  giving  it 
their  attention  inevitably,  were  not  roused  to 
mirth,  and  their  faces  betrayed  no  overwhelm- 
ing signs  of  stimulated  intelligence. 

But,  see!  What  has  happened?  Suddenly 
their  faces  are  alight,  they  lean  forward,  laugh- 
ter sways  them;  they  are  transfigured  into 
vital  attention,  stirred,  aroused.  Has  a  great 
emotional  actor  or  a  great  comedian  suddenly 
appeared  upon  the  stage?  No,  Tommy, 
the  fresh  office  boy,  has  entered  in  trousers 
too  tight  for  him  and  he  is  down  by  the 
footlights  talking  slang  and  making  "  mugs  " 
at  the  house.  The  '*  comic  relief "  has  at 
last  arrived.  Here  is  something  the  audi- 
ence can  understand,  something  they  are 
accustomed  to.  What  does  it  matter  if 
the  actor  who  plays  Tommy  is  grossly  out  of 
the  picture,  if  he  ridiculously  over-acts,  if  his 
mouth  is  twisted  and  spread  into  a  caricature 
of  the  mask  of  comedy?  He  is  the  hero  of 
the  moment.  The  Boss  is  forgotten.  His  is 
the  fame. 


AUDIENCES  — A  SPRING   GROUCH      273 

Yes,  success  is  in  the  silences.  And  how 
much  difference,  one  fell  to  wondering,  is  there 
after  all  between  this  audience  at  the  Lincoln 
Square,  with  its  narrow  little  range  of  apprecia- 
tion, its  pitifully  limited  capacity  of  under- 
standing and  criticism,  and  the  audiences 
further  south  on  Broadway,  where  fame  is  in 
a  song  about  ''  Bill  Simmons  "  and  the  magnif- 
icent success  of  Sothern's  impersonation  of 
Don  Quixote  is  in  the  deep,  deep  silence  of  the- 
atrical failure?  Critics  utter  their  shrill  com- 
plaints; dramatists,  managers,  and  actors  are 
rapped  and  roasted ;  a  famous  European  writer 
says,  "  in  America  the  dramatic  art  has  shrunk 
to  a  low  and  exceedingly  vulgar  level  " ;  we 
wail  that  we  have  no  native  poetic  drama  and 
next  to  no  prose  drama.  Yet  do  we  not  receive 
quite  as  good  theatrical  fare  as  we  deserve? 
Let  us  in  this  glad  season  of  flower  garden 
hats,  benefit  performances,  timid  violets  and 
fresh  asphalt  permit  the  dramatists,  actors  and 
managers  to  rest  a  while  in  peace  and  have  a 
look  at  ourselves  —  be  critical  of  audiences. 

A  friend  of  the  writer  who  spends  his  life 
in  doing  good  deeds  among  poor  and  rich  alike 
and  so  has  little  time  for  the  theater,  went  the 
other  evening  to  one  of  our  most  successful 
plays.  There  he  met  a  man  and  woman  of  his 
acquaintance  and  after  the  play  they  invited 
him  to  supper,  being,  like  the  average  husband 

18 


274    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

and  wife  of  Christendom,  glad  of  company  to 
relieve  the  monotony  of  existence.  They  took 
him  to  one  of  the  most  popular  of  the  Rialto 
cafes  and  *'  ordered  something."  As  the  room 
began  to  fill  up  he  noted  with  amazement  that, 
they  knew  after  a  fashion  half  the  people  there. 
It  was  a  strange  kind  of  community,  knit  by 
the  single  bond  of  nightly  theater  parties  and 
nightly  meetings  later  at  some  cafe.  With 
growing  astonishment  he  learned  that  his 
friends  had  tickets  to  the  theater  for  every  re- 
maining evening  that  week.  As  they  talked  a 
third  man,  a  broker,  came  over  and  joined  them. 
He  had  been  to  "  The  Servant  in  the  House." 
"  It 's  a  good  play,"  he  said,  "  and  I  ought  to 
know.  I  've  been  to  the  theater  about  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  times  in  the  last  year." 

"Good  heavens!  Why?"  said  the  writer's 
friend. 

"  Why  not?  "  said  the  broker. 

"What  would  you  have  us  do?"  said  the 
husband  and  wife. 

"What  would  you  have  us  do?"  —  isn't 
that  the  heart  of  the  problem,  or  very  close  to 
the  heart  of  the  problem?  When  home  be- 
comes the  last  resort  art  becomes  the  first,  and 
neither  profits.  There  are  in  the  Broadway  dis- 
trict alone  a  quarter  of  a  hundred  theaters, 
which  represent  an  investment  of  millions  of 
dollars,  which  nightly  cater  to  at  least  thirty 


AUDIENCES  — A  SPRING   GROUCH      275 

thousand  people,  which  employ  thousands  of 
actors  and  stage  hands  and  mechanics  and 
ushers  and  scene  painters  and  costumers. 
Nightly  through  the  Alley  is  the  roll  of  car- 
riages, the  flash  of  jewels,  the  endless  parade 
beneath  the  electric  letters  of  the  theater  por- 
tals, the  endless  parade  out  again,  and  then  the 
gleam  and  smoke  and  clatter  of  restaurants  and 
cafes.  How  strange,  how  bewildering,  how 
meaningless  it  would  all  seem  to  the  medita- 
tive Martian,  descended  from  his  planet,  where 
life  must  be  quiet  and  sedate,  with  so  many 
canals !  Yet  it  is  not  meaningless ;  it  is  fraught 
with  a  very  grave  meaning.  It  represents  an 
eternal  hectic  effort  to  escape  boredom.  The 
Alley  by  night  is  a  brilliant  battle-ground,  and 
Time  is  the  arch  enemy.  What  is  an  extra  dol- 
lar or  two  paid  to  a  nasty  speculator  on  the  curb 
and  cheerfully  accepted  by  the  doorman  in 
spite  of  the  six  foot  high  warning  beside  him 
(he  deals  in  tickets  himself  of  an  afternoon, 
maybe)  when  three  "  golden  "  hours,  which  in 
reality  are  only  plated,  can  thus  be  laid  low? 
Some  thousands  of  these  theatergoers  are  vis- 
itors to  town.  They  are  "  seeing  the  sights," 
or  they  have  been  buying  dry  goods  supplies 
all  day  and  must  fill  in  the  evening,  or  they  are 
gleefully  dragging  the  skirts  of  a  supposedly 
Puritan  propriety  through  the  dirt  of  a  sup- 
posedly naughty  Tenderloin,  with  a  musical 


£76    THE   AMERICAN  STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

comedy  as  a  preliminary  canter.  Some  other 
thousands  are  genuine  New  Yorkers;  that  is, 
they  were  born  in  Danbury,  Conn.,  or  Spokane, 
Wash.,  and  now  Hve  in  layers  on  Manhattan 
Island,  planning  to  go  back  home  again  some 
day  —  which  they  never  do.  Still  others  re- 
side in  Brooklyn.  See  them  run  for  the  sub- 
way when  the  play  is  out.  Enough  of  them  will 
be  squeezed  and  shoved  into  a  three  car  local 
at  Times  Square  to  fill  a  seven  car  express  at 
the  Grand  Central.  However,  they  will  all  get 
home  before  morning.  And  all  of  these  thou- 
sands the  theaters  swallow  up  at  eight  every 
evening  and  disgorge  at  eleven,  day  after  day, 
week  after  week.  Millions  of  dollars  pour  into 
the  box  offices.  Dancers  gyrate  and  sweat ;  ac- 
tors strut  and  pose  and  supply  columns  of  the 
papers  with  unimportant  gossip;  naval  lieuten- 
ant tenors  adventure  on  the  high  C;  managers 
watch  and  plan.  And  yet  we  have  no  drama. 
And  yet  "  the  powerful  and  complex  aesthetic 
pleasures  of  a  work  of  art  "  are  to  be  found  in 
but  a  scant  half  dozen  theaters  at  best.  And  yet 
the  thinness  and  poverty  of  our  theatrical  fare 
are  only  emphasized  by  the  unprecedentedly 
enormous  demand  for  theatrical  entertainment. 
In  plain  language,  we  go  to  the  theater  not 
to  secure  "  the  powerful  and  complex  aesthetic 
pleasures  of  a  work  of  art,"  not  to  see  our  life 
reflected  on  the  stage,  commented  upon,  ex- 


AUDIENCES  — A  SPRING   GROUCH     277 

plained  to  us,  not  for  the  uplift  and  release  of 
poetry  —  but  simply  because  we  have  n't  any- 
thing else  to  do.  When  a  man  goes  to  the  the- 
ater because  he  has  n't  anything  else  to  do  he 
is  not  in  a  condition  to  pick  his  play  with  much 
discrimination,  except  vaguely  to  avoid  *'  any- 
thing high  brow,"  whatever  that  may  mean. 
And  when  this  is  his  attitude,  when  all  he  asks 
is  that  he  shall  not  be  bored,  where  is  the  en- 
couragement, the  stimulus,  either  to  author  or 
manager,  to  give  him  more?  There  is  subtle 
truth  in  "  The  Witching  Hour."  The  earnest 
Vv^ishing  of  five  hundred  thousand  citizens  can- 
not perhaps  break  through  sealed  doors  and 
dictate  the  verdict  of  a  jury.  But  the  wishes 
and  desires  of  a  million  playgoers  cannot  fail 
to  shape  the  drama  that  is  written  for  them. 
Let  them  but  wish  another  "  Witching  Hour  " 
from  Mr.  Thomas  and  it  will  surely  come. 
Even  a  Theatrical  Syndicate  cannot  stop  it. 

Moreover,  when  a  man  goes  to  the  theater 
a  hundred  and  fifty  times  in  a  year  because  he 
has  nothing  else  to  do,  when  he  makes  the  play- 
house but  the  spoil  of  listless  hours,  it  means 
with  deadly  surencss  that  he  has  no  intellectual 
resources  in  himself.  The  psychological  prob- 
lems, the  complexities  of  choice  and  conduct, 
the  thousand  and  one  questions  raised  by  our 
modern  social  and  industrial  conditions,  which 
are  the  material  for  a  native  drama,  cannot  be 


278    THE   AMERICAN  STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

known  to  him,  surely  cannot  interest  him,  or 
he  could  not  find  one  hundred  and  fifty  plays 
in  New  York  in  a  season  that  he  could  volun- 
tarily endure  to  sit  through.  Since  these  prob- 
lems are  unknown  to  him  he  does  not  demand 
that  the  drama  tackle  them;  he  would  be  per- 
plexed, astonished,  very  likely  bored  if  it  did. 
*'  High  brow !  "  would  probably  be  his  con- 
temptuous commentary.  The  "  tired  American 
business  man "  (who  evidently  has  also  a 
weary  wife)  has  prattled  asininely  for  some 
time  —  or  somebody  has  prattled  for  him  — 
that  he  wants  when  evening  comes  '*  to  be 
amused,"  he  needs  "  relaxation."  And  his  is 
not  the  only  class  to  utter  this  chatter.  In  reality 
the  statement  carries  its  own  damnation,  for  it 
is  simply  an  admission  that  what  amuses  him 
is  coarseness,  frivolity,  falseness  and  bad  art, 
that  he  knows  nothing  and  cares  less  about  the 
relaxation  of  genuine  drama,  the  spiritual  up- 
lift and  strengthening  of  a  true  aesthetic  emo- 
tion. His  is  a  confession  that  his  brain  is 
pitiably  narrow  and  one  sided,  incapable  of  pay- 
ing attention  to  more  than  one  branch  of  serious 
human  endeavor,  impervious  to  culture,  dead 
to  art.  He  makes  out  a  pretty  bad  case  against 
himself.  If  it  is  half  as  bad  as  he  admits,  it  is 
bad  enough. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  we  have  too  many  the- 
aters,  too  many  actors,   too   many   plays   on 


AUDIENCES  — A  SPRING    GROUCH     279 

Manhattan  Island.  But  as  we  also  have  too 
many  people  matters  are  not  likely  to  be  mended 
by  subtraction.  Two  very  pleasant  features  of 
a  civilized  existence  are  impossible  where  there 
are  so  many  people  —  neighbors  and  homes. 
Many  neighbors  mean  no  neighbors;  and 
"  Paid  in  Full "  is  eloquent  testimony  to  the 
somewhat  restricted  existence  in  the  average 
flat.  Down  on  the  East  Side,  where  we  go  to 
carry  sweetness  and  light,  seldom  dreaming 
we  might  find  a  bit  there  for  our  own  use,  the 
Jews  have  contrived  to  maintain  a  certain  com- 
munity interest ;  and  the  Jews  have  a  drama  — 
a  vital,  flourishing  drama  that  is  a  part  of  their 
lives.  The  New  York  Public  Library  branches 
cannot  keep  Ibsen's  plays  on  the  shelves ;  they 
are  in  constant  demand.  And  if  you  ask  the 
librarians  who  read  these  plays  they  answer, 
"  The  Jews."  It  is  the  People's  Institute  that 
largely  supports  Shakespeare  in  this  city,  that 
put  "  The  Man  of  the  Hour  "  on  its  feet,  that 
has  helped  swing  "  The  Servant  in  the  House  " 
into  the  high  road  of  success.  To  these  people 
going  to  the  theater  means  a  sacrifice.  They 
cannot  go  a  hundred  and  fifty  times  in  a  year. 
And  when  they  do  go  they  go  for  a  better  pur- 
pose than  to  kill  time.  Probably  most  success- 
ful dramas  —  successful  in  the  better  sense  of 
providing  real  aesthetic  pleasure,  of  offering 
notable  acting  or  serious  discussion  —  are  sup- 


280    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

ported  after  the  first  few  weeks  by  people  to 
whom  the  price  of  a  ticket  means  a  sacrifice. 
It  is  the  men  and  women  who  cannot  have  what 
they  want  who  want  the  best.  So,  though  the 
meditative  Martian,  reflecting  on  what  he  saw, 
might  wing  back  to  his  canals  disgusted  with 
our  Alley,  we  need  not  pull  a  long  face  after 
all,  since  the  prospect  of  an  overwhelming  pro- 
portion of  the  population  securing  the  means 
to  get  what  they  want  when  they  want  it  is  so 
remote,  such  an  Utopian  dream  (if  it  would  not 
rather  prove  the  opposite  of  Utopian),  that  it 
need  not  worry  us.  Below  the  glitter  and  the 
hectic  flight  from  boredom  that  seems  to  the 
casual  glance  as  the  essence  of  Broadway  by 
night  is  always  to  be  detected  the  undercurrent, 
fed  from  a  thousand  sources,  of  those  who  go 
to  the  theater  not  to  kill  time  but  to  use  it,  of 
those  who  seek  the  relaxation  not  of  lingerie 
and  lights  but  of  aesthetic  and  intellectual  emo- 
tions. 

After  all,  the  wise  man  will  not  ask  for  much 
more  than  this.  He  will  admit  without  scold- 
ing the  right  of  narrower  minds  to  their  nar- 
rower entertainments,  and  he  will  not  hug  the 
delusion  of  universal  reformation.  Only  he 
will  urge  the  further  division  of  theaters  and 
managers  into  classes,  so  that  the  character  of 
an  entertainment  may  be  guaranteed  by  the 
house  where  it  is  produced,  and  eventually  per- 


AUDIENCES  — A   SPRING   GROUCH    281 

haps  the  endowment  of  at  least  one  theater  in 
every  large  city  where  a  wide  repertoire  of  the 
best  drama  is  constantly  played  for  the  delight 
and  instruction  of  all  who  care  to  come,  whether 
they  be  many  or  few.  At  present  our  stage  is 
conducted  for  the  "  common  average,"  which 
here,  as  anywhere  else,  as  in  the  school-room, 
for  instance,  works  hardship  for  the  few. 
What  we  need  is  a  manager  who  cares  so  little 
for  money  that  he  believes  in  the  divine  right 
of  the  minority.  And  the  broker  who  has  been 
to  the  theater  one  hundred  and  fifty  times  in 
one  season  did  see  "  The  Servant  in  the  House  " 
the  last  time.  One  real  thing,  at  least,  in  one 
hundred  and  fifty!  Perhaps  that  isn't  so  bad 
a  percentage.  Perhaps  the  wise  man  will  be 
grateful  for  the  one  and  forget  the  rest.  That 
is  the  part  of  philosophy.  Let  us  revert  to  the 
pretty,  formal  little  affectation  of  our  grand- 
fathers and  close  with  a  bit  of  poetry.  Once 
in  a  while  a  bit  of  poetry  leaves  a  pleasant  taste 
in  the  mouth,  even  if  the  present  mission  of 
poetry  is  to  fill  out  the  blank  space  on  a  maga- 
zine page.  And  why  not  the  rest  of  that  verse 
we  began  with? 

Have  little  care  that  Life  is  brief, 

And  less  that  Art  is  long; 
Success  is  in  the  silences, 

Though  fame  is  in  the  song. 


CROWDS   AND    MR,    HAMILTON 

M  GUST  AVE  LE  BON  once  wrote  a 
book  called  "The  Crowd:  A  Study 
of  the  Popular  Mind,"  since  when 
every  psychologist  and  every  academic  stu- 
dent can  tell  you  that  "  a  man  by  the  mere  fact 
that  he  forms  part  of  an  organized  crowd 
descends  several  rungs  on  the  ladder  of  civil- 
ization " ;  that  all  legislative  bodies,  though 
composed  of  intelligent  men,  are  collectively 
no  better  than  children  or  barbarians;  that  all 
theater  audiences,  even  though  composed  of 
men  and  women  of  culture  and  refinement,  by 
the  "  law  of  the  crowd,"  possess  as  collective 
bodies  neither  culture  nor  refinement,  are  in- 
terested only  in  the  most  primitive  emotions, 
delight  only  in  blood  and  carnage,  in  horse- 
play or  hysterics.  Clayton  Hamilton,  a  man 
who  takes  his  own  brain  to  the  theater  but 
thinks  nobody  else  does,  and  who  has  written 
a  piece  about  it*  called  "  The  Psychology  of 
Theater  Audiences,"  has  been  earnestly  read- 
ing Le  Bon's  book,  as  A.  B.  Walkley  of  the 
"  London  Times  "  evidently  read  it  before  him. 
And  Mr.  Hamilton,  ignoring  his  own  attitude 

*  The  Forum,  October,  1907. 


CROWDS  AND   MR.    HAMILTON       283 

when  a  unit  in  a  theatrical  audience,  and  ignor- 
ing also  the  very  possible  supposition  that  may- 
be some  hundreds  of  other  folks  around  him 
are  in  the  same  attitude,  swallows  Le  Bon  at 
a  single  gulp  and  boldly  assures  us  that  *'  even 
the  most  cultured  and  intellectual  of  men  when 
he  forms  an  atom  of  a  crowd  loses  conscious- 
ness of  his  acquired  mental  qualities  and  harks 
back  to  his  primal  nakedness  of  mind.  The 
dramatist,  therefore,  because  he  writes  for  a 
crowd,  writes  for  an  uncivilized  and  unculti- 
vated mind,  a  mind  richly  human,  vehement  in 
approbation,  violent  in  disapproval,  easily  cred- 
ulous, eagerly  enthusiastic,  boyishly  heroic,  and 
carelessly  unthinking." 

Now,  there 's  only  one  trouble  with  this 
statement  —  it  is  n't  true.  It 's  one  of  those 
most  pernicious  of  things,  a  half  truth.  It  is 
an  out  and  out  affirmation  of  a  very  much  quali- 
fied fact,  just  as  Le  Bon's  work,  which  was, 
without  question,  a  great  contribution  to  psy- 
chology, none  the  less  constantly  and  at  times 
violently  exaggerated,  as  was  natural,  perhaps, 
in  the  work  of  a  man  possessed  by  a  new  theory. 
No  one  denies  Le  Bon's  main  contention  that 
an  organized  crowd  tends  always  to  absorb  the 
personal  traits  of  the  men  who  compose  it  and 
to  assume  a  great,  comprehensive  new  con- 
sciousness of  its  own,  a  consciousness  made  up 
of  the  common  traits  of  the  individual  atoms, 


284     THE    AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

not  of  their  differences.  And  as  men  possess 
in  common  certain  primal  and  racial  passions, 
beliefs,  instincts,  rather  than  intellectual  over- 
beliefs  and  judgments,  the  mind  of  the  crowd 
tends  always  to  be  credulous,  emotional,  easily- 
swayed  by  passion  and  not  at  all  by  judgment. 
There  does  n't  a  man  exist  who  cannot  testify 
to  this  from  his  own  experience,  who  has  not 
at  some  time  or  other,  in  a  crowd  —  a  gang 
of  sophomores  hazing,  a  political  convention, 
what  not  —  done  something  he  would  not  have 
done  in  cold  blood  by  himself  —  cheered  or 
hooted  with  the  rest  at  some  sentiment  that  his 
personal  judgment  would,  if  left  to  itself,  have 
received  in  the  opposite  way,  "  descended  sev- 
eral rungs  on  the  ladder  of  civilization."  The 
mistake  lies  in  supposing  that  all  crowds  al- 
ways —  especially  Anglo-Saxon  crowds  —  so 
absorb  the  identity  of  the  atoms  which  com- 
pose them.  They  may  always  tend  to,  but  they 
by  no  means  always  succeed.  And  in  no  crowd 
is  the  absorption  so  likely  to  be  incomplete  as 
in  the  theater  audiences  which  gather  in  the 
better  play-houses  of  a  large  city. 

Indeed,  if  we  must  be  psychological  let  us 
be  psychological  in  the  only  ultimate  way  and 
indulge  in  a  little  introspection.  Mr.  Hamilton 
himself  does  not  admit  that  he  becomes  a 
barbarian  in  the  play-house;  we  do  not  get 
a    picture    of    him    scrambling    hastily   down 


CROWDS   AND   MR.    HAMILTON       285 

the    ladder    of    civilization    as    the    asbestos 
curtain    rises.      No,    rather    do    we    see    him 
perching   perkily   on    the   very    top,    exulting 
that   he   was    the   only   member   of   an   audi- 
ence   in    the    middle    West    who    appreciated 
the  lyric  quality  of  "  Othello."    And  if  you  or 
I  set  our  minds  to  the  task  of  recalling  some 
evening  in  the  play-house  we  shall  find  that 
while  the  woman  next  to  us  was  weeping  we 
were  wondering  why,  or  while  we  were  lis- 
tening to  some  speech  with  a  lump  in  our  throat 
the  man  behind  us  was  snickering.     Undoubt- 
edly there  are  times  in  the  theater  when  we 
laugh  because  a  laugh  sweeps  over  the  audi- 
ence, or  are  thrilled  by  contagion.    But  for  the 
most  part  those  of  us  who  have  reached  a  cer- 
tain scale  of  intelligence  and  achieved  a  certain 
standard  of  taste  sit  in  the  theater  more  or  less 
oblivious  to  the  crowd  around  us,  getting  our 
ideas  and   emotions   directly  from   the   stage. 
Mr.  Walkley  and  Mr.  Hamilton  and  the  rest 
who  have  found  in  Le  Bon  what  seems  to  them 
a  scientific  justification  for  the  old  academic 
bugaboo  of  "  primitive  passions,"  of  "  appeal 
to  the  great  masses  "  in  the  drama,  all  admit 
the  presence  in  the  orchestra  chairs  of  certain 
chosen  people  who  keep  themselves  detached, 
who  retain  their  own  identities.     Sometimes 
these   paragons   are  called  critics.     But  how 
can  anybody  stroll  in  the  lobby  of  a  Broadway 


286     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

play-house  between  the  acts  without  reahzing 
that  half  the  audience  are  critics,  lacking  only 
the  chance  to  blot  white  paper  with  black  ink? 
There  are  as  many  differences  of  opinion  on 
the  first  night  of  a  new  play  as  there  are  people 
in  the  house.  And  they  are  not  minor  dififer- 
ences,  but  fundamental  ones  —  this  man  liking 
the  play,  that  loathing  it.  There  is  no  great 
mob  judgment  of  the  play.  The  truth  is  that 
this  dear  old  theory  about  the  inevitable  neces- 
sity of  the  dramatist  to  deal  in  primitive  pas- 
sions, to  paint  in  raw  colors,  to  appeal  only 
to  the  broad,  fundamental  instincts  and  emo- 
tions of  the  race,  to  simplify  the  psychology  of 
his  characters  till  each  wears  a  label  of  good- 
ness or  badness  as  big  as  the  number  on  the 
back  of  a  Vanderbilt  cup  racer,  is  a  relic  of 
"  the  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth,"  that 
were  in  some  ways  about  as  narrow  as  well 
could  be.  It  is  a  theory  still  in  part  true,  of 
course ;  true,  certainly,  of  Eighth  Avenue,  true 
of  the  Broadway  balconies  (when  there  is  any- 
body in  them),  true  to  a  minor  extent  of  the 
lower  parts  of  the  house.  But  the  increased 
education,  the  more  catholic  and  subtle  tastes, 
the  greater  sophistication  and  training  in  ap- 
preciation of  art  of  the  modern  man  and 
woman  have  already  smashed  great  breaches  in 
the  wall  of  this  theory  and  are  every  day  mak- 
ing it  less  tenable.     Mr.  Hamilton  is  n't  the 


CROWDS   AND   MR.   HAMILTON       287 

only  man  who  goes  into  the  theater  without 
checking  his  personal  intelligence  and  refine- 
ment at  the  coat  room  —  aye,  even  in  New 
York,  even  in  our  merry,  care-free,  specula- 
tor infested  little  White  Alley! 

"  When  a  progressive  stage  society  is 
started,"  says  Mr.  Hamilton,  "  it  usually  damns 
itself  in  the  beginning  by  giving  a  special  per- 
formance of  '  The  Master  Builder.'  How  can 
it  hope  to  uplift  the  crowd  with  a  play  that  the 
crowd  cannot  with  any  effort  understand?  " 
And  then  he  cries,  "  Why  should  we  waste  our 
money  and  our  energy  trying  to  make  the 
crowd  come  to  see  '  The  Master  Builder  '  ?  " 

We  shall  have  to  refer  him  to  Mme.  Nazi- 
mova  for  an  answer.  She  will  tell  him  perti- 
nently that  she  did  n't  waste  any  money,  that 
she  took  it  in  hand  over  fist  at  the  box  ofBce 
window.  Perhaps  she  would  add  that  she 
did  n't,  however,  make  "  the  crowd,"  in  his 
sense,  come  to  the  Bijou  Theater  at  all,  that 
in  a  city  of  four  or  five  millions  of  people  there 
are  conceivably  various  grades  of  taste  and 
intelligence,  which  do  not  mix  in  the  play- 
house in  a  great,  heterogeneous  mass,  but  which 
seek  each  its  own  level  of  enjoyment ;  and  con- 
ceivably there  is  a  grade  capable  of  finding  en- 
joyment in  Ibsen  numerous  enough  to  fill  the 
Bijou  Theater  for  some  few  weeks,  while  an- 
other grade  is  having  the  time  of  its  life  at 


288     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

the  Rogers  Brothers.  At  any  rate,  there  were 
the  audiences  at  "  The  Master  Builder  "  every 
night,  and  packed  in  at  the  matinees  (Mr. 
Hamilton  goes  Hugo  one  better  in  his  low 
opinion  of  women  as  auditors  in  a  theater). 
There  is  the  fact.  What  is  Mr.  Hamilton 
going  to  do  about  it? 

In  his  article  he  says,  "  The  trouble  with 
most  of  the  dreamers  who  league  themselves 
for  the  uplifting  of  the  stage  is  that  they 
take  the  theater  too  seriously.  [The  theater 
audience]  seeks  amusement  .  .  .  amusement 
through  laughter,  sympathy,  terror  and  tears." 
In  the  name  of  the  Muses  shall  we  never  have 
done  with  this  academic  distinction  between 
the  stage  and  the  other  arts,  this  condescend- 
ing patronage  bestowed  on  the  poor  play-house 
by  the  learned  gentlemen  who  walk  beneath 
college  elms  and  appreciate  the  poetry  of  Shake- 
speare while  the  vulgar  mob,  of  course,  know 
nothing  about  it?  If  any  actor  or  any  man- 
ager or  any  critic  does  n't  take  the  theater 
seriously  he  'd  better  get  out  of  it.  If  any  man 
in  any  profession  does  n't  take  his  work  seri- 
ously he  's  wasting  his  time,  and  his  plain  duty 
is  to  get  out  and  hoe  corn  or  saw  wood  or 
otherwise  engage  himself  in  some  occupation 
worthy  of  his  ideals.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
amusing  people  is  the  most  serious  business 
in  the  world.    And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  man 


CROWDS   AND   MR.    HAMILTON       289 

who  does  it  through  the  drama  is  n't  obliged 
to  be  any  less  strict  with  his  artistic  conscience, 
any  more  lax  in  his  ideals  of  truth  and  beauty 
than  the  man  who  does  it  through  the  novel 
or  the  symphony  or  the  statue.  Are  not  musi- 
cal audiences  as  much  a  "  crowd  "  as  theatrical 
audiences?  But  did  Mozart  or  Beethoven  have 
to  select  tunes  that  the  "  primitive  whistle  " 
could  gleefully  compass  for  the  themes  of  their 
symphonies?  Do  the  Kneisels  have  to  play 
music  which  an  audience  at  the  Casino  would 
enjoy?  The  word  "amusement"  needs  rede- 
fining. Like  a  good  many  other  words,  it  needs 
redefining  at  least  once  a  generation.  Plays 
that  "  amused  "  our  fathers  don't  amuse  us ; 
plays  that  amuse  you  don't  amuse  me.  What 
does  each  of  us  mean?  In  Shakespeare's  day 
it  meant  to  be  entertained  by  a  story.  In  our 
day,  for  a  great  many  of  us,  probably  includ- 
ing Mr.  Hamilton,  it  means  to  be  shown  a  little 
more  clearly,  a  little  more  fully,  the  meaning 
and  the  mystery  of  our  human  lives,  their  com- 
plexities and  problems,  their  hopes  and  fears. 
And  one  of  these  complexities  is  the  breaking 
up  of  society  into  rough  intellectual  classes,  so 
that  two  plays  of  widely  different  appeal  may 
be  shown  on  opposite  sides  of  Broadway  and 
each  find  audiences  that  secure  from  it  the  pecu- 
liar form  of  enjoyment  their  taste  and  culture 
demand.     The  time  is  already  at  hand  when 

19 


290     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

the  "  primitive  psychology  "  of  the  crowd  need 
not  be  a  bugaboo  for  the  ambitious  and  earnest 
dramatist  who  feels  in  his  heart  of  hearts  that 
there  are  other  things  amusing  beside  sitting 
in  a  squash  pie  or  choking  your  wife  to  death 
in  a  jealous  fury. 


OBSERVATION   IN   THE   DRAMA 

A  CERTAIN  well-known  actress  recently 
said  that  she  admired  a  certain  other 
well-known  actress.  "Why?"  some- 
body asked  her,  perhaps  not  unreasonably  sur- 
prised. "  Because,"  said  she,  "  she  does  so 
wonderfully  well  those  things  that  —  that  no- 
body ever  does !  "  This  is  the  feminine  of 
David  Warfield's  assertion  that  too  many  ac- 
tors imitate  not  life  but  other  actors.  And 
what  is  true  of  the  players  is  equally  true  of 
the  playwrights.  The  old  brown  tree  theory 
in  painting  has  its  counterpart  in  play-making. 
The  artist  who  takes  his  canvas  out  of  doors, 
the  dramatist  who  writes  with  his  eye  on  life, 
are  alike  refreshing. 

If  any  proof  of  this  were  needed  it  is  to  be 
found  in  Clyde  Fitch's  farce,  "  Girls."  What- 
ever Mr.  Fitch's  faults  may  be,  lack  of  obser- 
vation is  not  one  of  them.  He  goes  through 
life  with  his  eyes  open;  his  mind  must  be  a 
stored  note-book  of  impressions.  His  men  and 
women  are  not  forever  doing  the  same  old 
things,  saying  the  same  old  words,  trotting  out 
the  same  old  pack  of  tricks.  They  do  things, 
they  say  things  which  reflect  the  life  around 


292     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

US  and  in  a  thousand  little  ways  connect  Mr. 
Fitch's  dramas  with  actualities.  Thus  the  sur- 
face texture  of  a  Fitch  play  is  always  surpris- 
ing and  delightful ;  it  seems  fresh.  When  his 
girls  modestly  retire  to  the  folding  bed,  the 
couch  and  the  Morris  chair  respectively,  set- 
tling down  for  slumber,  there  is  a  sudden  dia- 
bolical thumping  in  the  steam-pipes  —  a  little 
thing,  but  how  painfully  real  to  every  flat 
dweller  in  the  audience!  The  comic  effect  of 
this  single  small  touch  of  observation  is  sur- 
prisingly large.  Again,  the  hero  builds  a  bridge 
across  the  air-shaft  with  a  blind  —  a  patent 
bridge  for  cliff  dwellers,  he  calls  it,  hitting  off 
our  unholy  fashion  of  existence  in  New  York 
with  an  epithet  —  and  the  blind  falls  down. 
It  does  n't  fall  a  few  feet  to  the  stage.  You 
hear  it  bumping  from  side  to  side  down  all  four 
stories  that  are  supposed  to  be  there,  and  then 
comes  the  crash  of  broken  glass.  Mr.  Fitch  has 
looked  down  one  of  these  flat-house  air-shafts 
and  seen  the  skylight  at  the  bottom.  And  to 
you,  sitting  in  the  audience,  comes  the  picture 
too,  and  you  actually  feel  that  room  on  the 
stage  to  be  four  stories  up.  The  illusion  is 
very  pleasant  —  illusion  always  is.  You  are 
delighted  to  have  your  imagination  stirred  into 
doing  a  little  work,  into  helping  the  playwright 
build  his  scene. 

Mr.   Fitch  sends  one  of  his  girls  out  for 


OBSERVATION   IN  THE   DRAIVIA      293 

provisions.  He  has  observed  what  girls  eat 
on  such  occasions  (or  somebody  has  told  him, 
and  he  remembered).  A  titter  runs  through 
the  audience  as  the  packages  are  undone. 
Somebody  is  being  hit  here!  Then  there  are 
the  hairpins  in  the  match-box;  and  the  funny 
little  confectionery  bride  atop  the  wedding  cake 
(in  what  East  Side  bakeshop  window  did  Mr. 
Fitch  see  that  as  he  was  strolling  by  to  store 
away  the  memory  in  a  corner  of  his  brain?) ; 
and  the  "  elocutionist "  who  sings  "  Love  Me 
and  the  World  is  Mu-ine ! "  the  one  and  only 
song  for  her  to  sing,  sung  in  the  one  and  only 
way  to  sing  it :  and  the  silly  married  lady  who, 
blocked  in  her  pursuit  of  her  husband  by  one 
of  those  office  gates  which  have  the  real  catch 
on  the  under  side  of  the  apparent  lock,  gives 
up  the  attempt  to  solve  the  puzzle  and  climbs 
over  the  gate  with  that  comical  awkwardness 
of  the  sex  aware  of  their  ankles.  Most  of  us 
have  seen  a  woman  straddle  a  gate  and  smiled. 
Mr.  Fitch  knew  we  would  smile  at  it  in  a  play. 
It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  examples  of  this 
sort;  every  spectator  of  "  Girls  "  can  see  them 
for  himself.  Taken  together  they  are  what  give 
to  the  play  in  no  small  measure  its  freshness 
and  charm;  they  help  to  make  it  real,  to  con- 
nect it  with  the  lives  of  those  in  the  audience, 
to  arouse  pleasant  associations,  to  pique  mildly 
the  imagination.     And  they  are  all  the  result 


294     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

of  Mr.  Fitch's  gift  of  observation,  his  feel  for 
the  surface  texture  of  Hfe,  his  habit  of  keeping 
his  eyes  open  not  only  in  the  theater  but  out- 
side of  it. 

George  Ade  is  another  playwright  possessed 
of  the  seeing  eye,  "  the  eye  for  copy  "  it  would 
be  called  in  a  newspaper  shop ;  "  the  daily  theme 
eye  "  it  is  called  by  the  Harvard  English  de- 
partment. Before  he  wrote  for  the  stage  Mr. 
Ade's  "  Fables  in  Slang  "  had  carried  his  fame 
abroad,  because  of  their  delicious  observation, 
their  humorous  rendering  of  certain  phases  of 
life,  particularly  life  in  smaller  towns.  Even 
to-day  Ade  is  best  appreciated  by  the  man 
reared  in  a  small  town.  The  foibles  he  most 
keenly  exposes  are  the  foibles  of  the  village. 
The  tale  of  the  two  youths  in  "  Artie  "  —  poor, 
ill-fated,  delightful  "  Artie  "  —  who  went  to 
the  Union  No.  19  ball,  and  of  how  they  there 
"  picked  up  "  the  heroine,  is  not  to  be  flavored 
by  your  more  sophisticated  dweller  on  the 
Avenue,  who  does  not  know  that  the  game  of 
chance  acquaintance  has  its  etiquette  but  no 
impropriety.  The  faintest  suspicion  of  impro- 
priety would  have  ruined  the  truth  of  this 
scene.  "  The  College  Widow,"  of  course,  was 
one  long  exhibition  of  delicious  observations, 
from  the  big  guard,  whose  patent  leather  shoe 
"  bound  just  across  the  instep,"  to  the  board- 
ing-house keeper's  daughter  and  the  "  widow  " 


OBSERVATION   IN   THE   DRAMA      295 

herself,  who  wore  a  new  fraternity  pin  each 
season.  Indeed,  just  because  Mr.  Ade  does  go 
through  hfe  with  his  eyes  open,  just  because 
he  is  interested  in  the  men  and  women  about 
him,  he  is  able  to  tap  new  springs  of  theatrical 
supply,  to  avoid  the  stale,  the  overworked,  the 
conventional  in  the  theater,  bringing  something 
fresh  and  new  to  the  stage.  "  The  College 
Widow "  was  hailed  as  new  even  by  those 
people  who  could  not  know  that  it  was  true, 
who  could  not  appreciate  its  quiet  little  jabs 
of  satire,  its  amiable,  even  affectionate,  render- 
ing of  life  in  a  small  college.  It  is  not  his 
slang  that  makes  Mr.  Ade's  work  popular  with 
intelligent  people.  George  Cohan  can  write 
slang.  Certainly  it  is  not  his  skill  as  a  play 
constructor,  since  his  skill  in  that  direction  is 
conspicuous  only  by  its  absence.  It  is  his 
freshness,  the  unworn,  unhackneyed  quality  of 
his  texture  and  material.  And  he  has  this  fresh- 
ness because  Mr.  Ade  keeps  his  eyes  open. 
And  Mr.  Ade  keeps  his  eyes  open  because  his 
universe  is  not  bounded  by  the  Flatirons;  he 
loves  life  anywhere  he  meets  it,  loves  to  watch 
it,  to  render  it,  to  catch  up  some  faint  echo  of 
the  amusement  it  gives  him  into  his  plays,  that 
others  may  be  amused  as  he  is.  That  is  the 
secret  of  the  fresh  charm  of  his  work,  that  the 
source  of  its  vitality. 

J.  M.  Barrie,  perhaps,  of  all  living  English- 


296     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

speaking  playwrights,  best  illustrates  the  power 
of  observation  in  the  drama.  No  man  has 
tapped  a  more  varied  source  of  supply  than 
he,  and  no  man  has  brought  to  the  stage  a 
wider  range  of  novel  material.  The  village  of 
Thrums,  the  Quality  Street  of  Jane  Austen's 
time,  the  Never-never-never  land  of  childish 
fairy  tale,  the  English  drawing-room  of  to-day, 
with  the  life  below  stairs  shown  in  comical 
contrast,  are  alike  subjects  for  his  plays,  and 
alike  handled  with  the  most  faithful  and  lov- 
ing truth.  How  did  Barrie  come  to  write 
"Peter  Pan"?  Did  he  say,  "Go  to,  I  will 
write  a  play  for  children.  Pens,  ink,  and  paper, 
boy!"  Hardly.  He  walked  with  his  dog  in 
Kensington  Gardens;  he  told  tales  to  the  chil- 
dren there.  He  got  acquainted  with  the  ducks. 
He  learned  where  Peter  lived,  on  the  island. 
Finally  he  met  the  Little  White  Bird,  and  that 
was  the  little  bird  that  whispered  the  secret  of 
the  play  in  his  ear,  or  rather  of  the  book.  The 
play  came  later.  Nana  is  unnatural  history 
only  to  those  who  have  never  watched  dogs. 
The  play  fails  of  appeal  only  to  those  who  do 
not  remember  their  own  childhood  or  who  have 
not  lived  it  again  with  little  children.  Even 
such  a  slight  thing  as  Smee's  sewing  machine 
illustrates  Barrie's  eternal  watchfulness.  He 
and  Mr.  Frohman  had  gone  down  to  Man- 
chester to  see  the  first  "  provincial  "  produc- 


OBSERVATION   IN  THE   DRAMA      297 

tion  of  the  play.  They  were  walking  along 
the  street  in  the  afternoon  when  Barrie  sud- 
denly stopped  to  gaze  into  a  window.  A  man 
was  sitting  there  sewing  at  a  machine.  Barrie 
grinned.  *'  What  is  it?  "  asked  Mr.  Frohman. 
"Why,  don't  you  see?"  laughed  the  author. 
"  Sniee  must  have  a  sewing  machine  —  it 's  so 
incongruous."  And  that  night  he  had  his  ma- 
chine and  the  audience  roared. 

"The  Admirable  Crichton,"  so  different  from 
"  Peter  Pan,"  so  profoundly  philosophical  be- 
neath its  whimsicality,  is  conceived  in  terms  of 
the  most  rigid  and  solid  drama,  its  most  effec- 
tive moment  being  pantomime  —  the  moment 
at  the  end  of  the  second  act  when  the  aristo- 
crats who  have  revolted  from  the  rule  of  the 
butler  come  stealing  sheepishly  back  in  the 
darkness,  drawn  by  the  magic  odor  of  the  pot 
on  the  fire.  And  this  solidity  is  due  to  what? 
To  Mr.  Barrie's  faithful  observation.  The  ser- 
vants sitting  ill  at  ease  in  the  lord's  parlor 
for  their  monthly  dose  of  "equality" ;  the  butler 
on  the  desert  island  become  king  because  he  is 
the  one  who  knows  how  to  build  fires,  make 
houses,  cook  the  food,  meet  the  primitive  neces- 
sities; the  aristocrats  back  again  in  London 
assuming  once  more  their  superior  position 
while  the  butler  no  less  readily  assumes  his 
by  bowing  his  shoulders  and  rubbing  his  hands 
again  in  the  old,  submissive  way,  all  are  indi- 


298    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE    OF   TO-DAY 

cated  for  the  eye  almost  without  the  aid  of 
speech,  and  indicated  because  Barrie  knew  what 
he  was  drawing,  worked  from  the  hving  model. 
His  observation  was  minute  and  patient  and 
seemingly  unbounded.  He  knew  how  butlers 
rub  their  hands,  how  the  social  castes  below 
stairs  divide  themselves,  how  servants  sit  when 
they  are  trying  to  appear  at  ease  in  a  drawing- 
room,  how  Mayfair  makes  epigrams  or  holds 
its  head  up  haughtily  or  gets  hungry  on  a 
desert  island,  like  the  rest  of  us.  Other  men 
could  have  worked  out  the  logical  scheme  of 
"  The  Admirable  Crichton  "  as  well  as  Barrie; 
Shaw  no  doubt  could  have  worked  it  out  no 
less  wittily.  But  no  other  living  playwright 
could  have  made  it  not  alone  so  humane  and 
kindly  and  sweet,  but  so  real.  For  no  other 
playwright  has  watched  men  and  women  so 
closely  and  so  lovingly,  remembering  their  little 
tricks  and  attitudes,  their  pet  phrases  and  per- 
sonal humors,  their  oddities  of  dress  and  speech 
and  thought.  It  is  n't  Barrie's  fault  if  he  does 
this.  He  cannot  help  it.  That 's  the  way  the 
I.ord  made  him  —  a  lover  of  his  fellow  men 
for  their  own  sakes,  not  for  the  sake  of  put- 
ting them  into  a  play.  He  probably  gets  as 
much  fun  out  of  his  material  before  his  plays 
are  written  as  we  do  afterward. 

And  what  a  pity  it  is,  as  A.  B.  Walkley  has 
pointed  out,  that  Shaw  is  so  entirely  lacking 


OBSERVATION   IN   THE   DRAMA      299 

in  just  this  quality  of  observation.  Probably 
few  people  have  failed  to  experience  a  kind  of 
disappointment,  a  sense  of  vague  lack,  even  at 
the  most  brilliant  of  Shaw's  comedies.  They 
get  to  the  head,  but  not  below  it ;  they  inspire 
laughter  without  warmth  or  glow;  there  is 
something  unreal  about  them,  even  about 
"  Candida,"  for  they  leave  the  emotions  un- 
touched. "  The  ordinary  everyday  surface  of 
the  universe  is  to  him,"  says  Mr.  Walkley, 
"  only  a  springboard  from  which  he  jumps  into 
the  space  of  ratiocination  —  his  own  peculiar 
space,  a  space  of  four  dimensions."  Perish 
the  imputation  that  this  passionate  Fabian,  this 
paradoxical  Socialist,  doef  not  love  his  fellow 
men!  G.  B.  S.  loves  us  une  and  all.  But  he 
is  too  burdened  with  the  mission  of  correcting 
us,  of  making  the  straight  places  of  our  phi- 
losophy crooked,  of  supplying  us  with  theories 
and  shattering  our  romantic  ideals,  to  take  any 
interest  in  the  mere  surface  details  of  our  lives. 
He  could  never  sit  in  his  club  window  and 
watch  the  passing  throng.  If  he  should  walk 
in  Kensington  Gardens  he  would  ask  the  ducks 
why  they  were  n't  swans.  There  is  none  of 
Mr.  Barrie's  loving,  patient  rendering  of 
minute  detail  in  his  dramas,  because  he  is  n't 
interested  in  such  detail  in  life.  Therefore 
"  The  Admirable  Crichton,"  which  is  quite  as 
profoundly  philosophical    as    anything    Shaw 


800    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

has  written,  is  also  a  thousand  times  more 
real. 

To  come  back  to  Broadway,  "  Paid  in  Full  " 
admirably  illustrates  in  its  first  act  just  this 
quality  of  observation;  and  surely  it  is  more 
than  chance  that  as  the  truth  of  observation 
grows  dim  the  drama  grows  more  and  more 
theatric  and  conventional.  The  humors  of  a 
Harlem  flat  (for  a  Harlem  flat  may  have  its 
humors,  to  the  onlooker  at  least!),  the  young 
husband  with  the  carpet  sweeper,  the  dumb- 
waiter, the  speaking  tube,  the  paper-hanger's 
mess,  the  grocery  bills,  the  petty  economies  in 
light  and  fuel  give  to  that  admirable  open- 
ing act  a  tang  of  reality  that  is  lacking  later, 
when  the  machinery  of  the  story  gets  to  creak- 
ing and  the  characters  become  puppets  for  the 
purposes  of  the  play.  Mr.  Walter,  however, 
never  quite  loses  his  gift  of  observation.  There 
are  touches  of  it  in  his  "  semi-fashionable " 
hotel;  it  gleams  again  in  the  setting  for  Capt. 
Williams's  apartment,  and  in  the  Captain's 
conversation  with  his  servant.  And  every  fitful 
gleam  arouses  a  response  in  the  audience  that 
ought  to  show  plainly  enough  how  priceless  a 
gift  it  is  for  the  playwright,  especially  the  man 
who  would  make  dramas  of  contemporary  life. 

Emerson  once  remarked,  possibly  not  with- 
out a  touch  of  that  local  self-sufficiency  which 
still  may  be  found  in  Concord,  Massachusetts, 


OBSERVATION  IN   THE   DRAMA       301 

that  the  traveler  to  Europe  finds  nothing  there 
he  does  not  take  with  him.  Alas!  the  play- 
wright finds  nothing  in  life  either  that  he  does 
not  bring  with  him.  After  all,  you  cannot  go 
forth  saying  "  I  will  discover  a  new  corner  of 
life  to  exploit  on  the  stage,"  with  any  hope  of 
success.  It  is  the  old  fable  of  the  two  shep- 
herds who  sought  the  magic  flower.  Once  upon 
a  time  a  reporter,  lacking  an  assignment,  went 
down  to  the  Battery  and  sat  on  the  sea-wall, 
bemoaning  the  injustice  of  the  Fates  who  would 
not  bring  about  a  subway  accident  or  a  bomb 
explosion  or  a  four  alarm  fire  to  swell  his 
slender  space  bill.  The  sun  was  warm.  The 
lazy  tide  ran  by,  bearing  on  its  bosom  many 
strange  things  out  to  sea.  And  the  reporter 
had  the  curiosity  of  his  kind.  He  forgot  his 
hard  lot  in  the  pleasant  pastime  of  watching 
the  strange  burdens  of  the  tide.  Presently  he 
was  taking  notes.  A  couple  of  hours  later 
he  strolled  back  to  Park  Row  and  wrote  a  col- 
umn. '*  It 's  a  low  tide,"  he  said,  "  that  brings 
no  space."  And  it 's  a  pretty  poor  corner  of 
life  that  will  yield  no  drama.  But  that  drama 
is  not  to  be  had  for  the  asking.  The  seeing 
eye  must  discover  it,  the  faithful  hand  tran- 
scribe. It  must  be  observed  first  for  its  own 
sake,  loved  for  its  own  sake.  And  that  is  only 
possible  when  the  playwright  has  almost  the 
painter's  childish  delight  in  the  form  and  color 


302    THE  AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

and  movement  of  the  universe  and  the  healthy 
man's  warm-hearted  interest  in  the  doings  of 
his  fellows.  Mr.  Barrie  could  not  have  created 
Nana  if  he  did  n't  like  dogs,  nor  Crichton  if 
he  lacked  a  fraternal  interest  in  butlers. 
George  Ade  could  never  have  written  "  The 
College  Widow  "  if  he  had  gone  through  college 
with  his  nose  in  a  book.  Academic  courses 
in  the  technique  of  the  drama,  patient  study  of 
Euripides  and  Shakespeare,  Moliere  and  Con- 
greve  are  all  very  well.  But  the  young  loafer 
who  lounges  around  the  pool  room  in  his  club 
and  smokes  too  plenteous  pipes  of  good  fellow- 
ship in  unscholastic  chat  with  his  kind  may  be 
closer  to  the  right  track,  after  all  —  which  is 
a  dangerous  doctrine  for  undergraduates! 


THE   GRAPHOMANIA  MIMETICA 

INSPIRED  by  the  far-reaching  results 
which  have  followed  two  recent  theses  for 
the  doctor's  degree  at  Cambridge,  one  on 
"  The  longitudinal  vibrations  of  a  piece  of 
rubbed  string  "  and  the  other  on  "  The  place 
of  vision  in  the  mental  life  of  the  mouse,"  a 
friend  of  ours  has  for  some  time  past  been 
working  in  his  private  laboratory,  and  soon 
he  will  give  to  the  world  a  monograph  on  "  The 
effect  on  the  cellular  organism  of  a  guinea  pig 
of  the  bacillus  graphomania  mimetica."  He 
has,  after  months  of  patient  labor,  succeeded 
in  isolating  this  deadly  microbe,  and  has  several 
tubes  filled  with  the  cultures,  which  multiply 
in  the  temperature  of  Broadway  at  a  prodigious 
rate.  We  have  been  permitted  to  look  at  this 
microbe  through  a  powerful  magnifying  glass. 
It  is  a  horrid  bug,  yellow,  striped  with  black. 
We  shuddered  as  we  looked  at  it  and  made 
sure  to  wash  our  hands  with  carbolic  and  to 
disinfect  our  clothes.  But  the  scientist  seems 
to  handle  the  cultures  quite  without  fear,  and 
now  he  is  looking  for  human  beings  to  experi- 
ment on.  The  trouble,  he  says,  is  not  to  find 
people  willing  to  undergo  an  injection,  but  to 


304     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

find  anybody  who  has  n't  already  at  least  a 
taint  of  the  disease  in  his  blood.  Naturally 
he  tried  first  in  the  colleges;  but  the  under- 
graduates turned  out  the  worst  class  of  all. 
One  drop  of  blood  from  a  Harvard  senior  dis- 
closed on  analysis  3,400,271  microbes,  and  even 
in  the  women's  colleges  the  contagion  was  al- 
most as  bad.  If  there  is  anybody  who  has 
never  written  so  much  as  the  first  act  of  a 
play  and  has  never  felt  the  slightest  itch  to 
write  a  play,  this  scientist  would  be  grateful 
for  his  or  her  name  and  address.  But  in  spite 
of  his  inability  to  find  hitherto  a  perfectly 
healthy  human  being  on  whom  to  experiment, 
and  in  spite  of  his  inability  to  find  any  agent 
that  will  kill  the  germ  without  also  killing  the 
victim  (marriage  will  often  cure  love,  but  pro- 
duction seems  only  to  heighten  the  play  writing 
fever),  our  scientific  friend  has  yet  been  able 
to  draw  a  few  pretty  certain  conclusions  re- 
garding the  disease  that  can  hardly  fail  to  be 
of  interest. 

One  of  the  symptoms  which  usually  (though 
not  always)  distinguishes  the  play  writing  fever 
from  authoritis  in  general  is  the  presence  in 
the  victim  of  hallucinations,  closely  akin  on  the 
one  hand  to  the  morbid  idea  that  the  world  is 
in  a  conspiracy  against  one  —  a  common  form 
of  incipient  insanity  —  and  on  the  other  to  ex- 
aggerated egotism.    To  what  lengths  the  first 


THE    GRAPHOMANIA   MIMETICA      305 

form  of  the  hallucinations  will  lead  a  victim  is 
well  illustrated  by  a  playwright  who  not  long 
ago  wrote  a  furious  letter  to  a  certain  manager 
declaring  that  his  play  had  not  been  read.  He 
knew  it  had  n't  because  he  sprinkled  sand  be- 
tween pages  thirteen  and  fourteen,  and  the 
sand  was  still  there  when  the  manuscript  came 
back  to  him!  Managers  don't  read  the  plays 
submitted  to  them,  he  hotly  affirmed.  They 
produce  only  the  work  of  foreigners  or  dra- 
matists who  have  "  arrived."  The  Great  Amer- 
ica Drama  comes  knocking  at  their  door  and 
they  send  word  they  are  out.  The  second 
phase  of  the  hallucinations  is  also  illustrated 
by  this  same  case.  The  playwright  was  totally 
incapable  of  comprehending  that  perhaps  it  was 
enough  to  read  twelve  pages  of  his  play  to  find 
out  that  it  was  unfit  for  the  stage.  As  some- 
body once  took  the  trouble  to  say,  "  You  don't 
have  to  eat  the  whole  of  an  egg  to  discover 
that  it 's  rotten."  There  was  never  a  play- 
wright yet  who  did  not  feel  confident  that  his 
play  was  great,  who  did  not  know  that  it 
"  united  the  technique  of  Ibsen  with  the  amus- 
ing surface  detail  of  Fitch,"  as  a  budding 
young  dramatist  said  to  us  only  yesterday  while 
enthusiastically  describing  his  latest  master- 
piece. This  same  young  bud  had  a  play  pro- 
duced not  very  long  ago;  and  that,  we  admit, 
ought  to  be  an  argument  for  the  stupidity  of 


306    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

managers,  though  he  arrives  at  his  conclusion 
concerning  the  mental  capacity  of  the  powers 
that  produce  by  quite  another  logical  route. 
This  play  was  a  dire  failure.  Not  one  of  the 
characters  was  alive,  not  one  of  them  spoke 
human  speech,  not  for  a  moment  did  the  drama 
convince,  not  once  did  it  disclose  the  trace  of 
a  talent.  But  was  he  purged  of  his  fever? 
Far  from  it !  He  laid  the  blame  on  the  actors 
and  the  stage  management,  and  went  blithely 
to  work  on  a  second  masterpiece! 

Now,  nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that 
this  man  does  not  know  how  to  write  a  play, 
or,  better,  that  he  has  not  the  quality  and  force 
of  imagination  to  conceive  a  story  in  terms  of 
the  theater.  He  can  and  has  written  fiction 
of  some  merit  and  charm.  He  cannot  and 
never  will  write  a  play.  But  the  fatal  germ  is 
in  his  veins,  the  nasty  little  yellow  bug  is  eat- 
ing at  his  tissues.  And  incapacitated  for  self- 
criticism  as  a  result,  deluded,  wrapped  up  now 
in  his  dream,  he  goes  right  on  trying,  and  will 
go  right  on  trying  till  the  Ultimate  Disappoint- 
ment. Doubtless  the  malign  influence  of  the 
lady  of  the  winged  wheel  is  at  work  here,  and 
in  all  such  cases,  to  some  extent.  When  a 
poor  pen  pusher  to  whom  five  cents  a  word  is 
a  dream  of  avarice  reads  that  Charles  Klein 
has  made  half  a  million  dollars  from  "  The  Lion 
and  the  Mouse,"  or  that  Fitch's  royalties  have 


THE    GRAPHOMANIA   MIMETICA      307 

mounted  in  a  single  year  into  six  figures,  it  is 
easy  and  natural  for  him  to  convince  himself 
that  he  too  can  write  a  play.  The  fact  that 
he  knows  nothing  about  the  theater,  that  he 
has  never  trained  his  mind  to  think  in  terms 
of  the  stage,  that  the  dramatic  medium  is  not 
the  medium  proper  to  his  imagination,  does  not 
deter  him  in  the  slightest.  So  he  writes  the 
play,  and  back  it  comes  to  him  from  manager 
after  manager.  And  does  it  occur  to  him  that 
perhaps  these  men,  who  after  all  have  had  quite 
as  much  experience  in  the  theater  as  he,  know 
a  little  what  they  are  about,  that  possibly  his 
play  is  unfit  for  the  stage  ?  Far  otherwise !  It 
occurs  to  him  that  they  are  all  fools  and  the 
world  a  brutal  place,  unappreciative  of  true 
talent.  So  he  continues  to  heed  the  beckoning 
finger  of  the  lady  of  the  winged  wheel. 

Our  friend  the  scientist,  who  it  may  be 
guessed  is  not  unacquainted  with  the  practical 
theater,  for  the  sake  of  thoroughness  in  his 
investigations  studies  not  only  the  victims  of 
the  disease  but  their  fever  products.  To  that 
end  during  the  past  year  or  two  he  read  many 
score  of  manuscripts  that  poured  into  the  man- 
agers' ofBces.  He  states  positively  that  forty- 
eight  out  of  fifty  could  be  rejected  on  a  reading 
of  the  first  act,  thirty  out  of  fifty  on  a  reading 
of  ten  pages,  and  at  least  twenty  out  of  fifty 
on  a  bare  reading  of  the  cast  and  scene  plot. 


308    THE    AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

Perhaps  not  one  in  a  hundred  had  to  be  read 
through  to  the  end.  They  were  read  through 
to  the  end  always  in  the  hope  that  some  good 
idea,  some  gleam  of  talent,  might  be  discov- 
ered and  encouraged ;  but  it  was  not  necessary 
for  the  rejection  of  that  particular  play.  Musi- 
cal comedies  bristling  with  bad  puns,  impossible 
lyrics  and  naval  lieutenants  who  sing  tenor; 
poor,  feeble  copies  of  the  latest  Broadway  suc- 
cess; plays  without  points  and  plays  without 
joints  —  by  the  hundreds  they  pour  in  upon  the 
managers.  And  always  this  is  their  lesson, 
that  the  people  who  write  them  have  no  busi- 
ness trying  to  write  for  the  stage;  in  the  good 
old-fashioned  phrase  they  have  not  been 
"  called."  They  have  got  the  little  yellow  bug 
into  their  systems  and  are  sufferers  from  dis- 
ease. The  wonder  is  not  that  the  managers 
produce  so  few  good  plays,  but  so  many;  that 
they  contrive  to  pick  out  any  sheep  from  such 
an  endless  herd  of  goats. 

Perhaps  the  difference  between  the  born 
artist,  who  writes  poems  or  paints  pictures  or 
builds  plays  (plays  are  built,  not  written),  be- 
cause the  dear  Lord  willed  it  so,  and  the  fellow 
who  does  it  because  he  has  got  a  microbe  into 
his  system,  is  shown,  the  scientist  says,  most 
clearly  in  the  temper  with  which  either  man 
suffers  a  rejection.  Stevenson,  you  will  recall, 
records  that  if  his  '*  stuff  "  was  returned  to  him 


THE   GRAPHOMANIA   MIMETICA      309 

in  his  early  years,  why,  then,  he  told  himself,  he 
had  not  learned  to  write,  and  he  went  cheerfully 
back  to  his  practice.  And  such  practice!  He 
imitated  everybody.  He  wrote  and  rewrote  and 
rewrote  again  and  then  tore  up.  He  "  played 
the  sedulous  ape  to  Hazlitt,  to  Lamb,  to  Words- 
worth, to  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  to  Montaigne, 
to  Baudelaire  and  to  Obermann."  "  In  '  Mon- 
mouth,' a  tragedy,"  he  says,  "  I  reclined  on 
the  bosom  of  Mr.  Swinburne."  Finally,  after 
years  of  such  patient  toil,  he  began  to  know 
how  to  write.  The  born  dramatist  too  is  well 
aware  that  his  art  is  no  less  difficult  to  master, 
no  less  exacting  a  task  driver,  and  far  more 
difficult,  indeed,  to  secure  proper  practice  in ;  for 
it  is  only  on  the  stage  that  his  product  can  be 
fully  judged,  and  it  is  just  on  the  stage  that 
he  cannot  place  it  till  his  product  is  finished  and 
matured.  Nevertheless  he  will  not  be  discour- 
aged. He  will  "  play  the  sedulous  ape "  to 
Shakespeare  and  to  Ibsen  and  to  Dumas  and 
to  Scribe.  He  will  repose  on  the  bosom  of 
Jones.  He  will  build  and  rebuild  and  then 
tear  down.  And  if  he  should  get  his  work 
back  from  the  managers,  or  if  it  should  se- 
cure a  production  and  fail  on  the  stage,  he 
would  merely  say  that  he  had  not  yet 
learned  to  build  a  play,  and  go  back  to  his 
practice.  Thus  the  born  dramatist.  He  needs 
no   advice;    he   will    follow   the   star   of   his 


SIO     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

destiny  willy  nilly.  And  nothing  can  stop  his 
ultimate  "  arrival." 

But  the  man  who  makes  plays  not  from 
born  instinct,  not  because  his  imagination  casts 
everything  into  the  dramatic  mould,  but  be- 
cause somebody  else  has  written  plays  that 
brought  a  fortune,  or  just  because,  maybe,  it 
seems  a  pleasant  and  "  artistic  "  thing  to  do, 
because,  in  short,  he  has  inhaled  the  horrid 
yellow  germ  —  that  man  scorns  practice,  would 
sit  down  and  write  a  great  drama  at  the  first 
try,  would  have  it  that  a  noble  and  intricate 
and  baffling  art  can  be  mastered  in  a  moment 
or  by  anybody.  It  is  he  who  raises  the  cry  of 
ignorance  and  stupidity  when  his  manuscript 
comes  back  to  him.  It  is  he  who  blames  the 
public  or  the  actors  or  both  when  his  bad  plays 
fail.  It  is  he  who  wanders  in  our  Alley  —  so 
says  the  scientist  —  with  the  voice  of  a  martyr, 
declaring  against  the  hosts  of  the  Philistines. 
Samson's  weapon  seems  to  be  less  effective 
now.  Meanwhile,  again  says  our  scientist, 
even  as  he  is  displaying  this  symptom  of  the 
dread  disease,  the  born  playwright  (who  is, 
after  all,  the  only  immune)  is  at  home  at  his 
practice,  saying  nothing,  not  at  all  sure  that 
he  knows  how  to  write  a  play,  but  keeping  at 
it  just  the  same. 

So  the  disease  works  in  every  city,  in  every 
town  that  boasts  an  "  opera  house,"  in  every 


THE   GRAPHOMANIA   MIMETICA      311 

college  that  boasts  an  English  department. 
There  seem  to  be  no  adequate  preventive  sani- 
tary precautions,  still  less  no  cure.  But  per- 
haps there  is  a  compensation.  For  every  re- 
jected manuscript,  every  failure  of  false  or 
immature  or  ignorant  work  upon  the  stage, 
every  piece  of  knock-kneed  philosophy  or  vapid 
humor  or  clumsy  craftsmanship  sent  to  the  dust 
heap,  above  all  every  thwarted  attempt  of  little 
minded  men  to  foist  their  feeble  personalities 
into  the  theater,  but  shows  anew  the  trium- 
phant intricacy  and  conquering  truth  of  the 
dramatic  art. 


THE    CONFESSIONS    OF  A    CRITIC 

ENTITLE  a  dramatic  essay  The  Confes- 
sions of  a  Critic  and  there  will  not  be 
wanting  those  to  tell  you  it  should  con- 
sist of  a  diet  list  and  a  record  of  the  digestion. 
Broadway  hath  no  fury  like  an  actress  scored. 
Players,  living,  working,  breathing  in  the  con- 
centrated atmosphere  of  personalities,  whose 
measure  of  success,  even  in  cold  dollars  and 
cents  as  salary,  is  personal  popularity,  quite 
naturally  find  it  hard  to  realize  the  utter  im- 
personality of  the  critic's  judgments,  of  them- 
selves as  much  as  of  the  play.  It  is  an  un- 
fortunate feature  of  dramatic  and  musical 
criticism  that  names  have  to  be  used,  the 
names  of  sensitive  men  and  women  who  yet 
must  be  treated  as  if  they  were  but  parts  in 
a  machine.  That  is  one  of  their  tragedies  — 
when  critical  comment  is  adverse!  But  their 
comment  on  the  critic,  their  references  to  his 
digestion,  being  less  public,  are  not  one  of  his 
tragedies. 

His  tragedies  are  of  a  more  subtle  kind;  and 
mostly  they  consist  in  dim  forebodings,  half 
realizations  that  the  stage  conventions  he  up- 


THE   CONFESSIONS   OF  A  CRITIC     313 

holds,  the  rules  of  drama  he  measures  by,  the 
standards  he  affects  are  sham.  And  yet  he 
does  not  see  how  the  stage  can  do  without 
them.  Every  attempt  to  do  without  them  he 
watches  with  a  secret  passionate  expectation; 
and  it  always  fails.  Ever  the  facts  tell  him  he 
is  wrong;  ever  a  blind,  struggling  instinct 
within  himself  tells  him  he  is  somehow  right. 
He  does  not  know  which  to  believe,  what  to 
believe.  This  sets  his  face  eagerly  toward  the 
future,  which  is  surely  a  good,  but  otherwise  he 
can  see  no  good  to  come  of  it.  He  too  longs 
to  be  a  Master  Builder.  This  young,  urging 
critical  conscience  of  his  (for  such  a  symbol 
may  Hilda  be,  and  let  the  rabid  Ibsenites  re- 
joice!) demands  its  castle,  its  castle  "on  the 
table."  But  it  is  a  "  castle  in  the  air,"  indeed. 
He  cannot  reach  it.  The  parted  mists  again 
close  round  its  shadow  battlements.  And  that 
is  his  tragedy. 

What  are  some  of  the  dramatic  conventions 
he  upholds,  in  moments  of  doubt,  perhaps,  with 
the  greater  insistence,  as  something  tangible, 
at  least?  Set  down  in  a  row,  they  have  a  cer- 
tain platitudinous  impressiveness,  like  a  cata- 
logue of  the  virtues.  "  The  necessary  exag- 
geration of  the  stage ;  "  "  the  drama  must  be 
a  contest  between  wills ; "  "a  drama  must  ap- 
peal to  many  classes,  or  rather  to  a  common 
element  in  the  classes,  because  the  individual 


314     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

loses  his  identity  in  the  crowd,  a  new  '  psychol- 
ogy of  the  mob  '  taking  its  place  "  —  this,  of 
course,  meaning  the  dominance  of  the  so-called 
"  primitive  passions  " ;  "  exposition  is  best 
made  by  action,  not  conversation ;  "  "  it  is  not 
the  mission  of  the  theater  to  preach;"  and 
once  again,  "  the  necessary  exaggeration  of 
the  stage."  These  are  not  all.  If  they  only 
were!  Art  is  indeed  long,  even  in  its  list  of 
rules.  But  they  fairly  enough  represent  the 
rest. 

"  The  necessary  exaggeration  of  the  stage  " 
—  over  and  over  that  phrase  sings  itself  in  the 
critic's  ears  and  worms  itself  into  his  written 
words  and  comes  to  haunt  him  with  a  kind  of 
ironic  fatality,  because  he  recognizes  it  as  at 
once  the  truest  and  the  most  false  —  for  there 
are  degrees  of  truth  and  falsity,  let  grammar 
say  what  it  will  —  of  all  theatric  conventions. 
That  the  stage  has  its  exaggeration  no  sane 
man  will  deny.  That  the  exaggeration  is  still 
necessary  perhaps  no  sane  one  will.  But  that 
it  ought  to  be  necessary,  that  the  stage  gains 
by  the  exaggeration,  that  dramatic  art  is  not 
removed  from  life,  weakened  in  its  profound- 
est  appeal  by  the  exaggeration,  the  critic 
has  his  doubts.  And,  doubting  that  conven- 
tion, he  comes  to  doubt  all  the  others,  inter- 
wrought  as  they  are,  dependent  one  upon  the 
other. 


THE   CONFESSIONS    OF  A   CRITIC     315 

It  does  not  matter  if  the  play  is  "  Othello," 
or  "  The  Great  Divide,"  or  "  The  Second  Mrs. 
Tanqueray."  If  the  critic  has  not  killed  his 
wife  through  jealousy,  or  tried  to  commit  rape, 
or  wedded  a  woman  with  a  purple  past  —  and 
most  critics,  mild,  humdrum  creatures  at  heart, 
have  done  none  of  these  things  —  there  comes  a 
day  when  each  of  these  plays  profoundly  dissat- 
isfies, when  it  is  so  far  from  the  still  chambers 
of  reality  in  his  breast  that  he  watches  the 
stage  with  wonder,  amazed  that  this  drama 
could  ever  have  seemed  to  him  beautiful  or 
real.  Such  an  experience,  often  unanalysed 
and  always  difficult  of  analysis,  so  vague  is  it, 
so  half-conscious,  is  deeply  disquieting.  It 
leaves  a  sense  of  doubt  and  loss  behind,  the 
loss  of  faith  in  that  dramatic  art  which  has  for 
him  been  the  main  attention  of  his  life,  the 
field  of  his  activities,  the  source  of  his  inspira- 
tions. The  play  is  "  Othello."  How  often  has 
he  dilated  on  its  marvelous  technique,  the 
"  inevitable  march  "  of  its  action,  the  passion 
and  fire  of  it,  the  pathos  and  power.  But  sud- 
denly this  technical  perfection  has  become 
something  which  has  blinded  him,  this  passion 
and  fire  something  that  has  dazzled,  so  that  he 
has  never  before  seen  how  coarse  and  poor  and 
false  a  thing  lay  beneath.  Jealousy?  Is  this 
jealousy,  this  fury  of  thwarted  possession,  this 
homicidal  rage  of  a  negro,  incited  by  a  mon- 


316     THE    AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

ster  in  human  shape?  Shall  he  write  scath- 
ingly, in  the  approved  fashion,  of  the  Italian 
Novelli's  performance,  which  makes  of  Othello 
an  infuriated  gorilla,  almost  like  Bimi  in  Kip- 
ling's gruesome  story?  That  would  please 
his  public,  who  regard  ''  Othello  "  as  he  has 
always  done,  babbling  of  its  *'  dignity " 
and  *'  nobility."  But  for  once  his  hand  is 
stayed. 

For  what  is  jealousy  to  him?  What  is  it, 
after  all,  to  the  finer  conscience  of  his  age  and 
race?  Not  a  blind,  brute  passion  that  suspects, 
that  listens  to  no  reason,  that  knows  no  faith 
nor  trust,  that  brands  the  beloved  one  with  the 
vilest  epithet,  that  finally  does  murder,  utter 
and  cruel.  Such  it  may  be  to  the  apes;  such 
it  doubtless  was  to  the  Cave  Man;  Nero  may 
have  known  it  so.  But  for  him  it  is  something 
quite  otherwise.  For  him  its  terrible  tragedy 
comes  not  because  it  drives  him  through  suspi- 
cion and  unfaith  to  murder,  but  simply  because 
it  shows  him  as  in  a  lightning  flash  the  Sunder- 
ing Flood  that  rolls  between  personalities,  even 
between  two  souls  that  love.  Through  jeal- 
ousy, he  stretches  out  pathetic  hands  over  that 
Sundering  Flood ;  but  bridge  it  he  never  can. 
Though  his  faith  in  his  beloved  be  as  ever- 
lasting as  the  hills,  he  has  seen  that  her  real 
self  he  can  never  touch,  her  real  soul  never 
know.     He  can  never  see  what  she  sees,  he 


THE   CONFESSIONS   OF  A   CRITIC    317 

can  never  feel  what  she  feels.  What  has  the 
tragedy  of  Desdemonas  murder  by  an  infuri- 
ated baboon  to  do  with  tliis  spiritual  tragedy 
of  the  deep,  still  places  of  his  soul?  Less  than 
nothing.  For  once  he  leaves  the  theater  with 
a  sense  of  great  relief,  glad  of  any  escape  into 
reality,  if  only  the  garish  reality  of  Broadway 
and  its  gleaming  signs. 

And  perhaps  he  goes  home,  stands  irresolute 
before  his  book  shelves,  and  finally  takes  down 
"  The  Treasure  of  the  Humble."  And  therein 
he  finds  the  momentary  comfort  of  agreement, 
for  he  reads: 

"  To  the  tragic  author,  it  is  only  the  violence  of 
the  anecdote  that  appeals,  and  in  the  representation 
thereof  does  the  entire  interest  of  his  work  consist. 
And  he  imagines,  forsooth,  that  we  shall  delight  in 
witnessing  the  very  same  acts  that  brought  joy  to 
the  hearts  of  the  barbarians,  with  whom  murder, 
outrage,  and  treachery  were  matters  of  daily  occur- 
rence. .  .  .  Indeed,  when  I  go  to  the  theater  I  feel 
as  though  I  were  spending  a  few  hours  with  my  an- 
cestors, who  conceived  life  as  something  that  was 
primitive,  arid,  and  brutal ;  but  this  conception  of 
theirs  scarcely  even  lingers  in  my  memory,  and 
surely  it  is  not  one  that  I  can  share.  I  am  shown 
a  deceived  husband  killing  his  wife,  a  woman  poi- 
soning her  lover,  a  son  avenging  his  father,  a  father 
slaughtering  his  children,  children  putting  their 
father  to  death,  murdered  kings,  ravished  virgins, 
imprisoned  citizens,  —  in  a  word,  all  the  sublimity 
of  tradition,  but  alas,  how  superficial  and  material ! 


318     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

...  I  had  hoped  to  be  shown  some  act  of  life, 
traced  back  to  its  sources  and  to  its  mystery  by  con- 
necting" Hnks,  that  my  daily  occupations  afford  me 
neither  power  nor  occasion  to  study.  I  had  gone 
thither  hoping  that  the  beauty,  the  grandeur,  and  the 
earnestness  of  my  humble  day-by-day  existence 
would,  for  one  instant,  be  revealed  to  me,  that  I 
would  be  shown  the  I  know  not  what  presence, 
power,  or  God  that  is  ever  with  me  in  my  room. 
I  was  yearning  for  one  of  the  strange  moments 
of  a  higher  life  that  flit  unperceived  through  my 
dreariest  hours ;  whereas,  almost  invariably,  all  that 
I  beheld  was  but  a  man  who  would  tell  me  at  weari- 
some length  why  he  was  jealous,  why  he  poisoned, 
or  why  he  killed." 

Solacing  words,  till  suddenly  the  reflection 
comes,  "  But  what  sort  of  plays  has  this 
man  Maeterlinck  himself  written?"  "  Mona 
Vanna?"  A  tragedy  of  lust  and  murder  — 
the  beauty  but  the  blood  of  Renaissance  Italy. 
"  The  Death  of  Tintagiles?  "  A  shiver  in  five 
acts,  the  physical  horror  of  death.  "  Pelleas 
et  Melisande?  "  The  old,  old  story  of  Paolo 
and  Francesca,  of  physical  desire,  in  which  we 
are  "  shown  a  deceived  husband  killing  his 
wife."  "The  Blind?"  One  long  assault  on 
the  nerves,  stabs  in  the  dark,  the  refinement  of 
terror.  What  act  of  life  is  really  here  traced 
back  to  its  sources?  Shadow  wings  there 
are  of  things  intangible;  but  for  the  most 
part,  in  spite  of  his  mysticism,  Maeterlinck 
as  dramatist  reverts  to  type,   goes  back  for 


THE   CONFESSIONS   OF  A   CRITIC    319 

the  evening  to  his  ancestors.  The  "  static 
theater "  he  preaches  he  but  ineffectively 
practices. 

Does  "  the  necessary  exaggeration  of  the 
stage  "  mean,  then,  that  only  such  actions  and 
episodes  are  dramatic  as  show  men  and  women 
in  violent  conflict  or  emotion?  The  clever 
climax  is  that  which  brings  down  the  curtain 
when  the  audience  is  most  curious  to  learn  what 
will  happen  next.  Must  their  curiosity  always 
be  aroused  by  the  sight  of  two  men  facing  each 
other  on  the  stage  with  fists  clenched,  must 
their  curiosity  be  to  discover  whether  the  hero- 
ine escaped  from  the  villain's  chambers  with 
her  metaphorical  white  robe  still  unstained? 
Is  to  be  dramatic  to  show  the  exceptional,  to 
catch  life  at  its  most  violent  points  ?  And  must 
there  always  be  conflict,  "  the  conflict  between 
wills  "  ?  Has  the  stage  no  place  for  the  humble 
picture  of  daily  life,  where  conflict  may  not 
exist  at  all,  for  the  lyric  reaches  of  tranquillity 
and  reflection,  for  the  soul,  where  the  tragedies 
are  not  of  blood  and  action?  Ellen  Terry  on 
her  last  visit  to  America  produced  a  drama 
from  Holland  called  "  The  Good  Hope."  Its 
most  memorable  scene  showed  the  fishers' 
wives  sitting  at  their  work,  trying  to  converse 
of  commonplace  things.  But  always  the  Sea, 
the  gray,  hungry  Sea,  would  creep  into  their 
discourse,  and  one  by  one  they  would  forget 


320     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

to  work,  forget  to  speak,  gazing  out  at  the 
Monster  that  was  raging  in  storm.  Then 
they  would  pull  themselves  away  from  the 
tacitly  forbidden  topic,  only  once  again  to 
yield,  for  the  Monster  lay  at  the  back  of 
all  their  thoughts;  for  them  it  was  God 
and  Devil,  destiny  and  devourer.  In  this 
scene,  at  once  tragic  and  humble,  quiet  as  life 
itself,  with  no  bustle  of  '*  action  "  nor  clash 
of  wills,  was  the  finest  worth  of  the  play. 
And  the  play  failed.  But  must  it  always 
be  so? 

Max  Beerbohm  calls  the  play  where  "  noth- 
ing happens,"  where  a  picture  of  life  and 
character  supplants  the  story  of  violent  and 
improbable  action,  "adramatic."  There  are  be- 
ginning to  be  such  plays  even  in  America.  In 
the  novel  and  short  story  the  "  adramatic " 
tale  has  long  been  familiar,  and,  far  from  being 
despised,  it  is  now  valued  quite  as  highly  as 
the  romance  or  the  story  of  suspense.  The 
writer  of  fiction  does  not  have  to  seize  hold 
on  violent  emotions,  to  set  his  people  into  the 
clash  of  conflict,  to  seduce  and  murder  and 
steal  and  cheat.  But  the  play-house  lags  far 
along  behind.  How  seldom  is  a  play  written 
without  a  "  villain."  Yet  how  seldom  for  you 
or  me  or  those  we  know  are  the  serious  events 
of  our  lives,  even  the  catastrophes,  brought 
about  by  the  purposeful  plotting  of  some  fiend 


THE   CONFESSIONS   OF  A   CRITIC    321 

in  human  shape.  Even  Ibsen  could  not  get 
along  without  his  villains  till  almost  the  end 
of  his  career,  though  he  struggled  hard 
and  did  much  toward  reform.  We  smile  at 
the  stock  figures  of  vice  and  virtue  in  popular 
melodrama;  but  our  Broadway  plays  are 
only  a  step  higher.  We  are  still  far  from 
realizing  that  in  reality  each  man  is  his  own 
hero  and  villain,  that  the  true  conflicts  are 
within. 

Not  long  ago  Maude  Adams  played  "Twelfth 
Night"  at  Harvard  University  on  the  bare 
stage  of  Sanders  Theater,  after  what  the  Har- 
vard English  department  supposed  to  have  been 
the  Elizabethan  manner.  To  me  there  was 
something  almost  pathetic  in  thus  stripping 
the  play  down  to  its  essentials,  for  it  emerged 
a  fragile,  child-figure,  almost  trivial  in  its 
puny  prettiness.  Scenes  of  roaring  farce  there 
were,  such  farce  as  only  Shakespeare  ever 
wrote,  and  the  infinite  grace  of  language,  and 
that  vivid  life-likeness  to  the  characters  that 
is,  after  all,  what  makes  Shakespeare  supreme. 
But  grace  of  language  and  vividness  of  char- 
acter are  qualities  that  may  be  found  quite  as 
well  in  the  poem  or  the  novel.  What  is  essen- 
tially of  the  stage  in  the  play,  the  unfolding  of 
a  story  or  the  setting  forth  of  an  aspect  of  life 
in  terms  of  living  act  and  gesture,  seemed  sud- 
denly not  only  trivial  but  absurd.     This  con- 

21 


322     THE  AMERICAN  STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

fusion  of  brother  and  sister,  this  pretty 
masquerade  of  Viola  as  a  boy,  so  utterly  impos- 
sible, so  infantile  and  foolish,  seemed  in  spite 
of  the  grace  of  its  manner  almost  unworthy  of 
serious  attention.  I  caught  myself  looking 
with  amazement  at  the  men  and  women  about 
me,  so  learned  in  literature,  whose  beaming 
smiles  denoted  complete  satisfaction.  Was 
something  wrong  with  me,  I  wondered?  Or 
was  it  that  the  stage  in  their  lives  occupies  a 
much  less  important  place  than  in  mine,  that 
their  adult  and  deeper  interests  lie  elsewhere, 
are  otherwise  satisfied,  so  that  an  evening  in 
the  theater  is  for  them  —  as  for  how  many  of 
us !  —  a  kind  of  lapse  into  make-believe  land, 
into  the  easy  faith  and  careless  unreality  of 
childhood?  Should  that  be  the  attitude  of  all 
of  us  toward  the  theater,  should  we  all  be  Eliz- 
abethans, grown-up,  unreflecting  children  in 
the  play-house,  even  to-day,  putting  aside  our 
sense  of  reality,  our  deeper  desires,  when  we 
enter  its  portals  and  ignoring  what  advance 
the  drama  has  painfully  won  through  succes- 
sive generations?  Judging  not  historically 
but  absolutely,  should  we  find  "  Twelfth 
Night  "  wholly  great,  wholly  satisfying,  should 
we  fail  to  detect  in  its  theatrical  falsities 
and  unreality  signs  of  the  childhood  of  the 
race? 

Unless  we  do  detect  them,   unless  we  de- 


THE   CONFESSIONS   OF   A   CRITIC     323 

mand  of  our  modern  playwrights  a  method 
and  a  reality  commensurate  with  our  growth 
and  development  in  other  branches  of  human 
activity,  life  will  leap  ever  farther  ahead  of 
the  theater  and  the  theater  will  become  an 
ever-lessening  force  to  reckon  with.  How 
relative  are  all  our  rules  of  dramatic  construc- 
tion is,  after  all,  pretty  apparent  to-day.  What 
does  the  utter  banishment  of  the  "  aside  "  and 
the  soliloquy  mean  if  not  that  the  modern 
audience  has  done  away  with  one  more  con- 
vention, made  one  more  "  necessary  exaggera- 
tion "  not  only  unnecessary  but  absurd  ?  What 
does  the  tremendous  success  of  "  The  College 
Widow  "  mean  if  not  that  a  play  can  be  en- 
joyed for  its  truthful  pictorial  quality,  dis- 
pensing almost  entirely  with  the  "  contest  be- 
tween wills  "  ?  What  does  the  steady  growth 
of  realistic  American  drama  mean  if  not  that 
a  public  tired  of  endless  repetitions  of  theatrical 
story  are  hungry  not  for  exaggeration  but 
reality,  not  for  childish  make-believe  but  truth  ? 
What  does  the  popularity  of  G.  B.  Shaw  mean 
if  not  that  conversation  on  the  stage  may  be 
quite  as  interesting,  quite  as  significant,  as 
*'  action  "  ?  What  does  the  success  of  "  The 
Servant  in  the  House"  mean  if  not  that  the 
stage  can  preach?  We  used  to  draw  hard 
and  fast  lines  between  the  classes  of  drama; 
there  was  farce,  comedy,  tragedy,  melodrama. 


324    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

Now  such  distinctions  are  rapidly  disappear- 
ing, not  so  much  because  the  classes  tend  to 
flow  together  as  because  farce  and  tragedy 
alike  are  recognized  as  unreal,  inhuman,  and 
are  vanishing  from  the  earth,  while  melodrama 
is  sinking  to  the  level  of  the  ten-cent  houses, 
where  it  has  a  hard  time  to  hold  its  own  with 
moving  pictures.  Now  we  have  simply  drama, 
grave  or  gay,  or  sometimes  both.  Farce  was 
never  even  a  necessary  exaggeration,  it  was 
a  wilful  perversion  of  life.  At  the  present 
time  audiences  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
it.  What  once  amused  our  fathers  now  seems 
preposterous  to  us,  a  kind  of  insult  to  our  in- 
telligences. When  we  must  be  silly  that  way, 
we  join  farce  to  music  and  are  inane  to  rag- 
time. Musical  comedy  is  not  to  be  scorned. 
It  is  a  valuable  outlet  for  our  trivial  moods, 
a  safety  valve  on  the  boiler  of  our  thoughtless 
merriment.  It  protects  the  drama.  Tragedy, 
in  the  old  formal  sense,  is  as  surely  doomed 
as  farce.  A.  B.  Walkley  somewhere  speaks  of 
Aristotle's  "  apology  of  tragedy  as  a  cathartic." 
But  it  is  no  longer  a  cathartic  for  the  modern 
man.  Its  blood  and  physical  death  are  primi- 
tive to  the  point  of  disgust.  Even  the  stately 
religious  aspect  of  the  Greek  tragedy  can 
hardly  redeem  those  lugubrious  dramas  from 
their  pre-Christian  bloodthirstiness.  Shall  we 
suppose  that  Christianity  practiced,  however 


THE   CONFESSIONS   OF   A   CRITIC    325 

imperfectly,  for  nineteen  hundred  years  has 
had  no  effect  upon  us  in  our  attitude  toward 
the  drama,  though  every  other  attitude  of  our 
Hves  has  been  moulded  by  it?  Death  is  still 
a  tragedy,  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all  tragedies, 
—  the  eternal  tragedy  of  man.  But  death 
comes  to  most  of  us  now,  like  birth  and  growth, 
rain  and  sunlight,  as  a  part  of  the  natural 
order,  not  inflicted  violently  upon  us  by  our 
fellows.  Its  tragedy  lies  in  the  contemplation 
and  the  wonder.  Violence  and  murder  are 
very  far  away  from  most  of  us.  There  is 
something  pitifully  archaic  in  the  classic 
tragedy.  "  Hamlet  "  ceases  to  be  moving  when 
the  dead  begin  to  heap  up  on  the  stage.  At 
best,  death  in  the  modern  drama  inspires  a 
shudder  of  physical  repugnance.  What  stirs 
us  lies  all  before  or  after.  Not  what  end  a 
man  meets  but  what  use  he  makes  of  his  life 
before  he  dies  is  now  what  interests  us,  or 
what  effect  he  has  left  on  those  behind.  The 
tragedy  of  "  Ghosts  "  is  not  the  horrible  death 
of  Oswald  but  the  horrible  cause  of  it.  Here 
is  no  human  vengeance  wreaking  itself  in 
murder,  even  though  under  the  Greek  disguise 
of  divine  agency.  Nor  does  **  Ghosts  "  pre- 
tend to  "  purge  the  emotions  through  pity  and 
fear;"  it  is  the  scientific  example  of  the  dis- 
secting room.  A  modern  tragedy  is  Pinero's 
"  Iris,"  a  remorseless  study  of  the  dissolution 


326    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE  OF  TO-DAY 

of  a  woman's  soul.  And  the  tragedy  is  just 
here,  that  Iris  did  not  die,  that  she  went  on 
Hving.  Perhaps  death  is  not  a  tragedy,  after 
all.  Perhaps  for  us  heavy-eyed  children  of  the 
Twentieth  Century  life  is  the  tragedy.  Such 
doubts,  at  any  rate,  have  sounded  the  knell 
for  the  so-called  tragedy  of  the  classic  thea- 
ter. A  modern  audience  cannot  endure  its 
unreality. 

Reality!  Over  and  over  that  test  has  been 
applied  to  the  drama  throughout  this  book,  and 
over  and  over  men  and  women  are  applying  it 
in  the  theater  to-day,  even  if  the  stage  villain 
does  continue  to  flourish  and  bring  about  ab- 
surd catastrophes,  even  if  actors  and  actresses 
do  strut  and  pose  and  go  through  their  "  emo- 
tional scenes  "  without  any  relation  to  normal 
human  conduct,  even  if  playwrights  do  twist 
and  bend  their  stories  into  situations  that  carry 
the  largest  amount  of  superficial  excitement 
and  the  least  amount  of  significant  truth.  Why 
this  reality?  Why  this  reiterated  insistence  on 
fact?  The  stage  is  not  reality  and  cannot  be. 
Pasteboard  trees  have  no  sap,  E.  H.  Sothern 
is  not  Don  Quixote;  indeed,  Don  Quixote  him- 
self never  was.  Granted  that  the  drama  is  a 
game,  a  make-believe,  why  in  this  world  of  too, 
too  stubborn  facts  shall  we  not  permit  it  the 
blessed  license  of  fancy,  shall  we  not  bid  it 
bear  us  down  the  flowery  paths  of  unreality, 


THE   CONFESSIONS   OF  A   CRITIC     327 

making  heroes  out  of  common  stuff  and  heaven 
out  of  earth  —  or  at  any  rate  an  evening  of 
f orgetf ulness  ?  No,  the  stage  is  not  reahty; 
in  spite  of  its  Hving,  moving  actors,  its  statues 
come  to  Hfe  and  its  language  made  oral,  it 
still  demands  an  act  of  the  imagination  from 
the  beholder.  But  its  supreme  merit  as  an  art 
form  lies  in  the  reduction  of  this  demand  to 
the  least  possible  point,  leaving  scope  for  a 
vivid,  direct,  and  passionate  appeal  like  no 
other.  It  is  above  all  other  art  forms  capable 
of  carrying  the  semblance  of  reality ;  above  all 
other  art  forms  to  carry  the  semblance  of 
reality  rests  upon  it  in  consequence  as  a  duty. 
For  the  world  now  knows  that  reality  is  for- 
ever in  the  making.  What  we  called  real 
yesterday  is  unreal  to-day;  truth  is  what  we 
would  have  it,  reality  will  only  be  perfect  as 
we  shape  it  so.  To  deny  the  mission  of  the 
stage,  one  of  man's  most  cherished  fields  of 
aesthetic  endeavor,  in  this  high  task  of  re- 
moulding the  world  "  nearer  to  the  heart's 
desire,"  —  the  real  world,  not  the  make-believe, 
—  to  call  it  from  the  work  for  which  it  is  above 
all  other  art  forms  fitted  and  set  it  the  triv- 
ial task  of  aping  unrealities,  is  to  deny  the 
laws  of  change  and  growth,  to  belittle  the 
power  of  the  aesthetic  imagination,  hopelessly 
to  undervalue  the  worth  of  the  dramatic 
form. 


328    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

It  would  be,  perhaps,  a  humorless  proceed- 
ing to  obtrude  a  philosophic  discussion  of  the 
plastic  nature  of  truth,  the  relativity  of  reality, 
in  a  book  on  the  Broadway  Theater.  And 
perhaps,  too,  a  philosophic  discussion  by  the 
present  critic  would  be  rather  more  of  a  con- 
fession than  he  cares  to  make!  Yet  there  is 
something  to  be  said  for  any  attempt  to  apply 
in  action  a  philosophic  method;  belief  in  a 
philosophy  (as  in  a  religion)  is  of  very  little 
value  except  as  it  results  in  deeds.  Fired  with 
the  words  of  Dewey  and  Schiller  and  James, 
a  critic  of  the  drama  cannot  greatly  respect 
himself  if  he  does  not  seek  to  carry  into  his 
own  little  field  of  investigation  the  sanitary 
methods  these  men  have  adapted  from  the  com- 
mon-sense procedure  of  the  ages  and  given  a 
philosophic  sanction.  And,  for  the  critic  of 
the  drama,  what  is  most  valuable  and  helpful 
in  the  Pragmatic  method  is  the  assumption  that 
reality,  which  "  is  in  general  what  truths  have 
to  take  account  of,"  is  not  something  absolute, 
independent,  changeless  from  the  beginning, 
but  something  plastic,  not  so  much  "  discov- 
ered "  as  "  made  "  by  us.  Schiller  says,  "  For 
us  Reality  is  really  incomplete;  and  that  it  is 
so  is  our  fondest  hope.  For  what  this  means 
is  that  Reality  can  still  be  remade,  and  made 
perfect! "  And  elsewhere  he  says,  "  Mere 
knowing  always  alters  reality,  so  far  at  least 


THE   CONFESSIONS   OF   A   CRITIC    329 

as  one  party  to  the  transaction  is  concerned. 
Knowing  always  really  alters  the  knower ;  and 
as  the  knower  is  real  and  a  part  of  reality, 
reality  is  really  altered.  Even,  therefore,  what 
we  call  a  mere  '  discovery '  of  reality  involves 
a  real  change  in  us,  and  a  real  enlightenment 
of  our  ignorance.  And  inasmuch  as  this  will 
probably  induce  a  real  difference  in  our  sub- 
sequent behavior,  it  entails  a  real  alteration  in 
the  course  of  cosmic  events,  the  extent  of  which 
may  be  considerable,  while  its  importance  may 
be  enormous." 

In  his  lectures  on  Pragmatism  Professor 
James  points  out  that  while  we  can  admit  of 
no  variation  in  our  sensations,  which  bring  in 
to  us  the  sense  of  reality,  while  "  over  their 
nature,  order  and  quality  we  have  as  good  as 
no  control,"  yet  which  sensations  we  attend  to 
"  depends  on  our  own  interests ;  and  accord- 
ing as  we  lay  the  emphasis  here  or  there,  quite 
different  formulations  of  truth  result."  The 
same  battle  with  its  "  same  fixed  details  "  spells 
victory  for  one  side,  defeat  for  the  other.  The 
same  world  spells  victory  to  the  optimist,  de- 
feat to  the  pessimist.  No  new  fact  ever  comes 
to  us  without  being  sifted,  tested,  thrown  into 
perspective  by  the  sum  of  our  previous  knowl- 
edge, by  our  own  reasoning.  "  When  we  talk 
of  reality  '  independent '  of  human  thinking, 
then,  it  seems  a  thing  very  hard  to  find.     It 


330    THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

reduces  to  the  notion  of  what  is  just  entering 
into  experience  and  yet  to  be  named,  or  else 
to  some  imagined  aboriginal  presence  in  ex- 
perience, before  any  belief  about  the  presence 
had  arisen,  before  any  human  conception  had 
been  applied.  It  is  what  is  absolutely  dumb 
and  evanescent,  the  merely  ideal  limit  of  our 
minds.  We  may  glimpse  it,  but  we  never 
grasp  it;  what  we  grasp  is  always  some 
substitute  for  it  which  previous  human  think- 
ing has  peptonized  and  coked  for  our  con- 
sumption." 

How  different  a  thing  does  this  make  of  the 
term  realism  as  applied  to  the  drama  from  the 
ordinary  conception  of  theatrical  realism !  Real 
pumps,  real  water,  real  flower-pots  may  or  may 
not  be  a  part  of  it,  according  to  the  popular 
mood  of  the  hour;  it  does  not  matter.  All 
art  is  representative,  not  necessarily  imitative. 
The  realism  I  would  mean  now  consists  in 
the  representation  on  the  stage  of  the  impor- 
tant facts  of  life  which  square  with  men's  pos- 
sible experience,  with  the  reality  which  makes 
up  not  the  shell  of  our  world  but  its  heart  and 
fiber,  with  emotions,  beliefs,  impulses,  actions, 
so  that  by  detaching  these  facts  in  the  play- 
house, boiling  away  extraneous  matter,  setting 
them  forth  in  the  high  relief  of  an  art  work, 
the  facts  may  be  assimilated  into  the  previous 
knowledge  of  the  beholder,  enlarging  his  con- 


THE   CONFESSIONS   OF   A   CRITIC    331 

ception  of  truth,  altering  for  him  his  reaHty. 
Specifically,  if  a  playwright  concocts  a  "part " 
for  a  star,  devising  a  series  of  situations  that 
enable  her  to  weep,  to  laugh,  to  coquette,  to 
do  a  little  dance,  and  finally  to  fall  happily  and 
automatically  in  her  lover's  arms,  it  does  not 
matter  if  he  has  a  thousand  real  pumps  pump- 
ing real  water  in  his  play,  or,  as  Clyde  Fitch  did 
in  ''  Captain  Jinks,"  a  faithfully  copied  setting 
of  some  actual  building  known  to  the  audience. 
He  is  not  a  realist.  He  is  adding  nothing  to 
our  sum  total  of  reality.  He  is  giving  us 
nothing  of  the  stufif  that  significant  truths  have 
to  take  account  of.  But  if  he  presents  on  the 
stage  an  actual  picture  of  some  corner  of  life 
that  he  has  observed  (whether  his  pumps  are 
pasteboard  or  wood),  either  George  Ade's 
''  fresh  water "  college  or  Gorky's  "  Night 
Refuge  " ;  or  if  he  draws  characters  that  live 
because  every  word  and  emotion  strikes  a 
response  in  our  breasts,  as  in  the  plays  of 
Shakespeare;  or  if  he  shows  us  soul  states 
that  disturb  us  as  possible  states  of  our  own 
souls,  as  did  Moody  in  "  The  Great  Divide," 
he  is  in  so  far  a  realist,  for  he  is  dealing  with 
the  stufif  that  significant  truths  have  to  take 
account  of.  Shall  we  never  have  done  with 
this  idea  that  realism  in  art  means  only  point- 
ing a  camera  at  a  pig-sty?  Is  Ade's  "  At- 
water "   any  less   real  than  Gorky's   *'  Night 


S32    THE  AMERICAN   STAGE  OF   TO-DAY 

Refuge"  because  of  its  radiant  cheerfulness? 
The  tone  of  the  reaHsm  depends  on  the  temper 
of  the  reahst,  which  is  but  another  proof  that 
truth  and  reahty  are  man-made.  The  reahst 
is  any  artist  who  deals  not  with  material  that 
has  no  counterpart  outside  the  theater,  and  so 
is  of  no  practical  consequence  to  anybody,  but 
with  the  facts  of  the  larger  world.  His  own 
temper,  however,  will  color  his  presentation. 
Our  tempers  will  still  further  change  what  he 
has  given  us.  And  thus  the  play-house  can 
aid  in  shaping  reality,  in  moving  this  old  world 
on.  When  we  demand  reality  in  the  drama 
what  we  really  demand  is  that  the  drama  shall 
be  a  part  of  our  actual  lives,  not  "  a  sleep  and 
a  forgetting."  "  The  College  Widow "  and 
"  The  Night  Refuge "  gave  us  diametrically 
opposed  pictures,  but  because  each  of  them 
dealt  with  reality  there  followed  from  each  a 
distinct  reaction;  from  the  one  toward  cheer- 
fulness and  hope,  from  the  other  toward  gloom 
and  despair;  together  they  deepened  the  mys- 
tery of  this  human  life  of  ours,  they  altered 
our  sum  total  of  reality.  What  reaction  fol- 
lows from  "  My  Wife,"  or  Ethel  Barrymore's 
recent  vehicle,  "  Her  Sister,"  or  Belasco's 
"  Rose  of  the  Rancho,"  or  any  one  of  a  thou- 
sand machines  for  the  stimulation  of  easy 
theatrical  interest  or  excitement?  None 
whatever.     They  litter  the  stage.     They  are 


THE    CONFESSIONS   OF   A    CRITIC    333 

theatrical  rubbish,  fit  only  for  the  slag  heap  of 
eternity. 

But  if  such  dramas  are  quite  demonstrably 
false  and  worthless  because  by  their  failure  to 
square  with  the  realities  of  life  they  have  no 
beneficial  effects,  tJiey  will  not  work,  there  is 
another  sort  of  drama  that  does  work,  that 
does  have  a  beneficial  effect,  although  it,  too, 
fails  to  square  at  least  with  the  objective  reali- 
ties of  life.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  poetic 
drama,  and  to  the  romance  of  the  supernatural, 
—  to  "  Peter  Pan,"  or  "  Peer  Gynt,"  or  "  The 
Tempest."  What  are  we  to  say  of  such  plays? 
Well,  so  far  as  they  work,  as  they  give  us 
uplift  and  pleasure  without  doing  violence  to 
our  beliefs  about  reality,  such  plays  must  cor- 
respond to  something  within,  not  outside,  our- 
selves. It  would  make  only  for  hopeless  con- 
fusion to  call  them,  in  a  different  or  higher 
sense,  realistic.  But  a  study  of  them  will  show 
that  when  they  are  successful  their  verse, 
though  verse  does  not  correspond  to  any  ex- 
ternal reality,  does  no  violence  to  eternal  real- 
ity in  the  emotions  it  expresses,  being  only 
successful  when  coupled  with  exalted  moods; 
or  that  their  supernatural  elements  are  so  ad- 
justed to  the  known  real  that  they  can  be  dis- 
associated or  taken  as  symbols.  Ariel  flies,  but 
Miranda  walks  on  solid  earth.  Peter  Pan  is 
a  symbol  to  us  grown-ups  of  the  dear,  lost  days 


334    THE   AMERICAN  STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

of  childhood.  As  our  own  thoughts,  behefs, 
dreams,  ideals,  not  only  shape  reality  but  are 
a  part  of  the  reality  shaped,  the  supernatural, 
symbolism,  poetry  are,  of  course,  realities,  and 
so  far  as  they  make  us  better  or  happier  they 
are  true.  In  this  larger  sense  "  Peer  Gynt " 
is  as  realistic  as  "  Hedda  Gabler."  Only  we 
must  be  sure  that  the  dramas  which  try  to 
embody  them  do  make  us  better  or  happier. 
Else  they  are  false  as  "  Her  Sister." 

Walter  Pater,  in  his  famous  Conclusion  to 
"  The  Renaissance,"  said:  "  Great  passions  may 
give  us  this  quickened  sense  of  life,  ecstasy  and 
sorrow  of  love,  the  various  forms  of  enthusi- 
astic activity,  disinterested  or  otherwise,  which 
come  naturally  to  many  of  us.  Only  be  sure  it 
is  passion  —  that  it  does  yield  you  this  fruit 
of  a  quickened,  multiplied  consciousness.  Of 
this  wisdom,  the  poetic  passion,  the  desire  of 
beauty,  the  love  of  art  for  art's  sake  has  most ; 
for  art  comes  to  you  professing  frankly  to 
give  nothing  but  the  highest  quality  to  your 
moments  as  they  pass,  and  simply  for  those 
moments'  sake."  He  feared  at  first  that  the 
lofty  Hedonism  of  these  words  might  be  mis- 
construed and  work  injury.  His  is  very  far 
from  the  Hedonism  of  the  shop  girl,  buried 
in  a  love  scene  by  Laura  Jean  Libby.  Pater 
would  not  have  found  the  highest  quality  in 
a  moment  that  detached  him  alike  from  objec- 


THE   CONFESSIONS   OF   A   CRITIC    335 

tive  reality  and  that  sense  of  nobility,  of  spirit- 
ual value,  in  the  subjective  dream  which  is 
alone  what  gives  it  its  truth.  The  subjective 
dream,  in  fact,  is  always  dangerous,  even  for 
the  greatest  minds;  its  value  has  frequently 
to  be  tested,  in  this  common-sense  world,  by 
reference  to  external  reality.  We  yield  easy 
faith  in  the  theater.  We  can  afiford  to  dis- 
pense with  this  test  only  on  rare  occasions. 
We  are  only  too  ready  to  accept  "  The  Jest- 
ers "  for  poetry,  or  to  declare  as  we  weep  with 
some  "  emotional  actress  "  in  a  silly,  artificial 
play  that  we  are  experiencing  a  great  spiritual 
release. 

Perhaps,  indeed,  there  is  really  no  such  thing 
as  art  for  art's  sake.  Art  presupposes  two 
human  attitudes,  —  that  of  artist  and  of  be- 
holder. The  artist  himself  may  be  the  beholder, 
but  that  does  not  alter  the  case.  Art  exists 
in  answer  to  a  human  need,  for  humanity.  It 
is  man's  reflection  on  himself  and  on  his  en- 
vironment, on  the  sum  total,  that  is  to  say,  of 
his  reality.  It  is  man's  idea  of  what  reality 
is  or  his  dream  of  what  it  should  be.  It  can 
be,  therefore  —  nay,  it  must  be,  to  be  genuine 
art  —  a  potent  factor  in  shaping  reality.  The 
man  who  flees  to  it  away  from  life,  thus  alter- 
ing his  own  existence,  himself  a  part  of  real- 
ity, or  the  man  who  consciously  uses  it,  as 
Charles  Rann  Kennedy  uses  "  The  Servant  in 


336    THE  AMERICAN   STAGE   OF  TO-DAY 

the  House,"  as  an  agent  in  the  world's  work, 
is  alike  confessing  it  a  force  to  mould  reality. 
The  more  of  reality  the  drama  thus  contains, 
the  more  of  truth,  that  is,  to  the  facts  of  ex- 
perience, the  more  powerful  it  may  be  in  shap- 
ing the  truth,  the  reality,  of  to-morrow.  If 
in  this  book  I  have  seemed  sometimes  scornful 
of  the  poetic  drama,  insisting  on  a  realism  that 
appeared  to  preclude  the  higher  reaches  of  the 
fancy  and  the  imagination,  it  is  not  because 
I  do  not  respect  poetry,  but  because  I  respect 
it  too  highly  to  view  with  any  patience  the 
usual  masquerade  of  poetry  in  the  play-house. 
It  is  vastly  more  difficult  to  bring  forth  a  truth 
from  within  than  to  picture  it  from  without. 
But  no  difficulty  will  deter  the  destined  poet. 
If  his  vision  is  true,  if  it  will  bring  real  uplift 
and  strength  to  humanity,  he  will  make  it 
known,  and  no  words  of  any  little  critic  can 
stop  him.  But  just  now  we  seem  neither  to 
have  a  poet  with  the  needed  power  of  vision 
nor  a  public  in  the  mood  to  find  a  greater  help 
in  the  inner  vision  than  the  objective  reality. 
We  are  only  on  the  threshold  of  a  drama  of 
any  kind.  To  carry  even  external  reality  that 
drama  finds  a  puzzling  task.  The  old  con- 
ventions of  the  stage,  the  exaggerations  of  the 
actors,  the  preoccupation  with  violent  emotions 
and  unusual  episodes,  with  artificial  excitement 
and  improbable  fable,  the  traditional  insistence 


THE    CONFESSIONS   OF  A   CRITIC     337 

of  the  drama  on  the  need  for  "  action,"  always 
**  action,"  have  done  much  to  ahenate  the 
thoughtful  modern  man  from  the  theater  alto- 
gether. And  because,  in  men's  minds,  the 
romance  and  the  poetic  play  are  associated  not 
so  much  with  truth  to  an  inner  vision  as 
allegiance  to  just  these  unrealities  of  stage 
convention,  they  are  the  least  fitted  at  present 
to  lead  the  theater  forward.  Our  stage  must 
creep  closer  to  life,  it  must  eliminate  the  smell 
of  the  scene  loft,  not  by  substituting  "  real " 
scenery  but  real  episodes,  real  emotions,  real 
fable;  it  must  strive  ever,  not  to  violate  the 
facts  of  experience  and  so  lead  us  nowhere,  but 
to  picture  the  facts  of  experience  and  so  lead 
us  to  a  better  understanding  of  them,  to  a  new 
shaping  of  reality.  Only  thus  can  the  stage 
escape  the  ultimate  contempt  of  intelligent  men 
and  women.  We  no  longer  go  to  the  theater 
—  some  of  us  —  in  the  child-like  spirit  of  the 
Elizabethans,  even  of  our  own  fathers.  Our 
attitude  has  changed,  changed  far  more  than 
the  drama.  We  have  made  much  of  the  old 
truth  a  lie.  And  unless  the  drama  changes 
to  meet  our  new  attitude  it  will  sink  every- 
where to  the  level  of  heedless  amusement,  where 
the  vulgar  and  ignorant  theatrical  managers  of 
New  York  already  suppose  it  to  be.  And  that 
change  can  only  be  made  by  incessantly  apply- 
ing the  test  of  fact,  by  constantly  throwing 


S38     THE   AMERICAN   STAGE   OF   TO-DAY 

overboard  every  convention,  however  honor- 
able with  age,  that  brings  into  the  drama  for 
the  modern  man  the  shghtest  taint  of  unreal- 
ity. We  do  not  know  what  the  drama  of  to- 
morrow will  be;  nor  do  we  know  what  the 
truth  of  to-morrow  will  be.  But  they  will 
surely  be  something  different,  and  let  us  have 
the  courage  to  believe  that  through  our  human 
efforts  they  will  be  something  better. 


The  University  Press,  Cambridge,  U.  S.  A. 


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